Keele Management School

I joined Keele University in August 2005 as a Senior Teaching Fellow. Prior to this, I was a Principal Lecturer at Staffordshire University, taking on roles such as Head of Marketing Field and also Senior Award Tutor for the Business and Management undergraduate programme. I have travelled extensively whilst working in the University sector, as a University examiner and programme advisor, and have taught modules in China, Malaysia and Singapore. My teaching experience since 1989 includes a wide variety of undergraduate, postgraduate and professional (Chartered Institute of Marketing) courses. Since arriving at Keele, I have led a course development team through the process of developing a new postgraduate programme, the MA in Marketing, which recruited its first intake in September 2006. My current scholarly interests centre on consumption, consumer research and material culture, particularly in the context of collecting and collectors.

In my doctoral study, I am exploring the world of collecting couples/dyads, focusing on the ways that collecting practice interfaces with the wider social and cultural world, which in turn influences and shapes the consumption practices of an individual collector. My research is underpinned by a social constructionist epistemology and my thesis aims to generate insights into the gendered consumption practices found within collecting dyads. In particular I am focusing on the meanings associated with collectable possessions in the context of family relationships, and the collaborative, competitive and co-operative collecting behaviours found in the social and cultural world of the collector. I have developed an original conceptual framework that reflects and represents the interfaces between individual collectors, the social context in which they operate, and the material cultural context in which they collect objects. This is an underexplored aspect of collecting which has wider relevance for our understanding of gender, practice, and consumption. I am currently writing up my PhD.

• Hughes N and Hogg M K (2006) “Multiple realities, multiple meanings and a mountain of objects”, in Ekstrom K and Brembeck H (Eds), European Advances in Consumer Research, Vol 7, Duluth: Association of Consumer Research.
• Hughes N and Hogg M K (2006) “Conceptualizing and exploring couple dyads in the world of collecting” in Pechman C and Price L (Eds) Advances in Consumer Research, Vol 33, Duluth, MN: Association of Consumer Research.

Conference Papers and Presentations:

• Hughes N and Hogg M K (2001) “Subjects and their objects: a brief review of the collector and the collected”, Academy of Marketing Conference, Cardiff.
• Hughes N and Hogg M K (2002) “Collectors in their social world: a subculture of consumption”, Academy of Marketing Conference, Nottingham.
• Hughes N (2003) “Collectors in their social world: a subculture of consumption? Towards a research agenda”, Association of Consumer Research Conference, Atlanta.
• Hughes N and Hogg M K (2003) “Co-existing consumer behaviours: women collect rubbish whilst men collect art?”, European Association of Consumer Research Conference, Dublin.
• Hughes N and Hogg M K (2006) “Problematizing gendered interpretations of collecting behaviour”, Association for Consumer Research, Gender, Marketing and Consumer Behaviour Conference, Edinburgh.