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This paper aims to contribute to this special issue on interpretivist research methodologies and the phygital consumerist landscape by exploring some underlying issues within the specific context of luxury consumption. The paper starts with a critique of current research, drawing particular attention to problems of reductionism, poor representativeness and weak contextualisation in research that adopts a positivist epistemology. The paper then highlights some of the contributions that interpretivist scholarship is making, and can potentially make, to our understanding of the experiential and humanistic aspects of luxury consumption, presented in a nuanced, discursive and deeply contextualised manner.

This commentary is informed by an in-depth examination of the methodology and approach adopted in the 327 most-recently published academic articles on luxury (from late-2021).

This opinion piece suggests the need for a sea-change in the way that scholars approach luxury research in online, offline and hybrid phygital settings to capture and convey its true complexity, diversity, contingency and contextuality and its emotional and symbolic character, and to help ensure that it delivers findings that are of relevance and value to luxury industry practitioners.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to look comprehensively and critically at the methodological approaches adopted by academics writing in the field of luxury consumption.

The Asian crisis, which exploded in Thailand in July 1997 initially, spilled to the other ASEAN countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, and Philippines) and later it spreads to Korea and even crossing the continent to Russia and Brazil. The chronological pattern seems to indicate the contagious behaviour of the crisis. However, the sequential economic down‐turns that occurred in the Asia Pacific do look like a contagion effect. The idea that currency speculators contributed to the depth of the crisis is agreeable but to conclude that they are the roots of the problem would be misleading. This paper argued that the roots of the problems lie in current account deficit and loss of competitiveness, and moral hazard and over‐investment This paper also argued that the currency crisis is a symptom and not the cause of the Asian crisis.

This paper aims to present a critical review of some literature on climate change and migration through conceptualizing and contextualizing the linkages between the two topics. Much literature on links between climate change and migration tends to downplay ambiguities in the terms and the limited empirical evidence. Conceptualizing refers to the knowledge gaps and the need to understand and detail (even if not agreeing on) conceptual issues such as terminology, definitions, linkages, drivers, thresholds, implications, data requirements and methodologies. Contextualizing refers to understanding the climate change and migration debate within wider topical and geographical contexts. Results identify major qualitative and quantitative gaps. Qualitatively, limited material exists on why people react differently to similar environmental stressors and why certain outcomes may arise. Quantitatively, credible and verifiable measures are not always available for assessing the climate change impacts on migration. This paper recommends a stratified, multi-disciplinary approach to facilitate policies regarding climate change and migration connections.

Illustrative literature review, clustering important themes found in published research and policy documents. First, qualitative aspects are covered, particularly in terms of definitions and terminology. Second, quantitative aspects are detailed, particularly in terms of data available and estimates made. Further, the paper is organized around two distinct areas, i.e. conceptualizing and contextualizing climate change and migration links.

Results identify major qualitative and quantitative gaps. Qualitatively, limited material exists on why people react differently to similar environmental stressors and why certain outcomes may arise. Quantitatively, credible and verifiable measures are not always available for assessing the climate change impacts on migration. This paper recommends a stratified, multi-disciplinary approach to facilitate policies regarding climate change and migration connections.

Without being comprehensive in the literature covered, this paper provided a critical overview and synthesis of climate change and migration work through the lens of conceptualization and contextualization. Major gaps in the literature were identified through an illustrative, not complete, review. Qualitative and quantitative aspects were covered including definitions, terminology, data available and estimates being made.

Agricultural and food systems in the Mekong Region are undergoing transformations because of increasing engagement in international trade, alongside economic growth, dietary change and urbanisation. Food systems approaches are often used to understand these kinds of transformation processes, with particular strengths in linking social, economic and environmental dimensions of food at multiple scales. We argue that while the food systems approach strives to provide a comprehensive understanding of food production, consumption and environmental drivers, it is less well equipped to shed light on the role of actors, knowledge and power in transformation processes and on the divergent impacts and outcomes of these processes for different actors. We suggest that an approach that uses food systems as heuristics but complements it with attention to actors, knowledge and power improves our understanding of transformations such as those underway in the Mekong Region. The key transformations in the region include the emergence of regional food markets and vertically integrated supply chains that control increasing share of the market, increase in contract farming particularly in the peripheries of the region, replacement of crops cultivated for human consumption with corn grown for animal feed. These transformations are increasingly marginalising small-scale farmers, while at the same time, many other farmers increasingly pursue non-agricultural livelihoods. Food consumption is also changing, with integrated supply chains controlling substantial part of the mass market. Our analysis highlights that theoretical innovations grounded in political economy, agrarian change, development studies and rural livelihoods can help to increase theoretical depth of inquiries to accommodate the increasingly global dimensions of food. As a result, we map out a future research agenda to unpack the dynamic food system interactions and to unveil the social, economic and environmental impacts of these rapid transformations. We identify policy and managerial implications coupled with sustainable pathways for change.