La segmentation ethnique en marketing : un outil de maintien de la domination sociale en France

The present article poses the question of researcher responsibility in disseminating ideologies encouraging the cultural separation and pigeonholing of minority social groups within a dominant/dominated relationship. The roots of ethnic segmentation in the colonial paradigm is an eloquent example in research in marketing. And yet the paradigm splitting the world into centre and periphery or dominant and dominated is not the only one possible. Based on postcolonial studies, researchers in marketing address the ethnic market in as close proximity to consumers as possible and tailoring their methodologies to Consumer Culture Theory. They thus become aware that the ethnic sentiment does not exist without the involvement of the dominant group who impose this way of thinking on minorities. As to multicultural individuals, they navigate various social situations drawing on various ingredients of identity available. It is hence more a question of multiple selves than ethnic identity. They create their own identity and co-create new social categories out of the no-man’s lands between dominant and dominated groups. The postcolonial approach raises the question as to whether ethnicity is an artefact with no internal reality behind it, other than that of a top-down vision of minorities.