Date: 07 January 2026, Wednesday
Time:10.30 – 11.30
Place: MA-330
“Inclusive Exclusion: When Market Expansion Reinforces Exclusion”
This is an online seminar. To request event details please send a message to department.
by
Utku Ay
University of Arizona
Abstract
Firms often seek growth through inclusion, extending their brands to new consumer groups. Yet these initiatives frequently reproduce exclusionary structures rather than dismantle them. This study introduces inclusive exclusion, an empirically derived and theoretically grounded construct that explains how inclusionary marketing strategies can perform inclusion while sustaining exclusionary order. Drawing on an ethnographic investigation of football in Turkey, we identify three mechanisms of market participation that structure consumer inclusion and exclusion: consumer role assignment, consumption pathways, and infrastructural support. Inclusion emerges under conditions of role alignment, coherent pathways, and strong infrastructural support, which foster legitimate market participation.
Conversely, when firms invite new consumers, but these mechanisms produce role misalignment, fragmented pathways, and infrastructural neglect, inclusive exclusion manifests, as gestures of inclusion generate exclusionary outcomes. Our findings show that inclusive exclusion is not a failure of execution, but a curated market logic embedded in how organizations pursue inclusion within existing cultural and institutional constraints. The construct advances marketing theory by demonstrating that inclusion and exclusion are co-constitutive, performative processes that sustain legitimate market participation and belonging. For marketers, this analysis underscores that genuine inclusion requires reconfiguring not only access but also the aesthetic and infrastructural conditions of participation.
Bio
Utku Ay is a PhD candidate in Marketing at the University of Arizona, Eller College of Management. His research focuses on marketplace formation and dynamics, inclusion and exclusion, consumer communities, and the intersections of design, material culture, and consumption. His work has been presented at leading international conferences such as AMA, ACR, and CCT, and his research targets top-tier journals including the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Consumer Research, and the Journal of Public Policy and Marketing. Drawing on interdisciplinary training in business and industrial design, he examines how markets, culture, and design co-constitute consumer experiences.