Assemblage and actor-network theories explain how markets and consumption are constituted by heterogeneous resources that form part-whole relations at various scales. Marketing and consumer research studies that use these theories, however, often retain human-centred scales and units of analysis, such that objects and forces that exist at unfamiliar (time)scales are overlooked. This paper explains how Object-Oriented Ontology can help to guide ontological, methodological, and analytical considerations in studies of market and consumption assemblages. We offer a framework that helps researchers to consider how far researchers should unpack assemblages into component parts; to what extent studies should trace objects’ effects as part of wider contexts; how ‘objects’ may harbour qualities that are withdrawn from social contexts; and how these hidden features can be encountered through speculative methods. Finally, we critically discuss the place of objects and subjects in socio-material research.

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the methodological importance of how researchers exit fieldwork to draw attention to implications for participant and researcher well-being. Design/methodology/approach Reflecting in detail on one researcher’s final six-months exiting fieldwork at a retirement village, this paper critically examines the unintended consequences of participant observation and researcher-participant relationships. Findings The paper illustrates that difficulties to exit fieldwork can be unintended consequences of participant observation activities and developing researcher-participant relationships. The findings also discuss how fieldwork exit can impose upon participant and researcher well-being. Research limitations/implications The findings are built upon fieldwork at a retirement village where the researcher served as a volunteer. Thus, the discussion focusses on participant observation activities that are likely to lead to close researcher-participant relationships. However, this paper aims to serve as a useful resource for researchers when considering how to exit their unique fieldwork contexts “with grace”. Practical implications The paper provides practical suggestions to help marketing researchers such as ethnographers, manage fieldwork exits with participant and researcher well-being concerns in mind. Social implications The practical suggestions provided by this paper aim to enable marketing researchers to exit fieldwork contexts “with grace” through reflection and proactive management of the social impacts of their research activities. Originality/value Even though researchers acknowledge fieldwork is social and personal by nature, little research attention has been paid to the management of researcher-participant relationships and the exit stage of fieldwork. This paper discusses and addresses this blind-spot in marketing research.

Older consumers’ adoption and consumption of technologies continues to be an important research area. However, marketing scholarship on this topic risks unintentionally smuggling age stereotypes into its constructed theories. Such assumptions include older consumers’ adoption processes being complicated by health and social isolation issues and their low tech-skills. Although stereotypes hold a ‘kernel-of-truth’ and underpin meaningful research, they can transform from helpful heuristics to impediments to crafting reflexive scholarship. Therefore, this article reviews marketing literature on older consumers and technology. It develops a 2 × 3 typology to analyse 86 articles based on their portrayals of older consumers’ capabilities (incapable/capable) and technology orientations (resisting/discerning/seeking). The typology’s six emergent categories aim to turn age stereotypes into ‘productive tensions’ for researchers by encouraging critical reflexivity in ways that broaden future research possibilities. These possibilities include better accounting for older consumers who are skilled technology-seekers, and equally, non-adopters with non-technophobic reasons to resist adoption.