Asserting Integration through Nostalgic Discourses: Acculturation to an International Community

The concept of nostalgia has played an important role in consumer research for the last decades. Its main conceptualization is one of “bitter-sweet” feelings of longing for a past considered as better than the current situation, which leads consumers to prefer products reminding them of these happy times (Holak and Havlena 1998; Schindler and Holbrook 2003). In the migration context, recent research points to its beneficial side, for instance in easing migrants’ adaptation to a new (consumption) culture (Stamboli-Rodriguez 2011), nuancing nostalgia’s initial link to negative experiences of homesickness (Matt 2007). Increased migration around the world due to globalization has led to a diversification of migrants’ socio-economic and geographical profiles, which diversifies the cultural influences during acculturation. As a large share of research has however focused mainly on permanent, low-skilled labor migration between two cultures, investigating the role of nostalgia in consumer acculturation of more diversified types of migrants is therefore timely. Hence, the aim of this paper is to investigate individuals’ recourse to nostalgic consumption discourses during multicultural encounters.