Professor Rohit Varman

Professor Rohit Varman

Department of Marketing
Professor of Marketing and Consumption

Contact details

Telephone
+44 (0)121 415 8356
Email
r.varman@bham.ac.uk
Address
Room 208, Ash House
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT

Rohit Varman is Professor of Marketing and Consumption at Birmingham Business School. He uses interpretive methodologies and his current inter-disciplinary research focuses on structures of subalternity, market violence and modern slavery, postcolonial theory, and resistance to corporatization and marketization.

He has published in leading marketing journals, including Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Retailing, Journal of Marketing Management, Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, Marketing Theory, European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Macro Marketing and Consumption Markets, and Culture.  He has also published in leading management journals, including Organization Science, Human Relations, and Journal of Business Research.

Rohit’s research was awarded Emerald Citation of Excellence in 2015. He is also President-Elect of the International Society of Marketing & Development.

He is currently an associate editor of Consumption, Markets & Culture and serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Macro Marketing, Journal of Marketing Management and Journal of Historical Research in Marketing. He has guest edited special issues of Journal of Marketing Management, Journal of Macro Marketing, and Journal of Historical Research in Marketing. He has also co-edited books published by Cambridge University Press on alternative organizations in India and on critical marketing published by Routledge.

He is interested in supervising PhDs in the following areas:

  • Critical Marketing
  • Marketing and Society
  • Consumer Culture
  • History of Marketing
  • Subaltern Markets and Consumption
  • Resistance and Consumer Movements
  • Colonialism, Consumption, and Markets

Qualifications

  • Ph.D, University of Utah
  • MBA, McGill University

Biography

Past Positions:

2017 – 2019: Professor, Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta

2015 – 2017: Professor, Deakin University

2012 – 2015: Professor, Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta

2010 –2012: Associate Professor, Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta

2009 – 2010: Senior Lecturer, Henley Business School, University of Reading                                  

2006 – 2008: Assistant Professor, Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta                                  

2002 – 2006: Assistant Professor, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur

Teaching

  • Social Marketing and Societal Issues
    BSc Programme in Singapore
  • Cross Cultural Communication
    MSc Programme

Postgraduate supervision

  • Four Successful PhD Supervisions
  • Served on Supervisory Committees of Several PhD Students

Research

Research interests

Rohit uses interpretive methodologies and his broad areas of research are critical marketing and consumer culture.  His current inter-disciplinary research focuses on market violence, structures of subalternity, modern slavery, consumer ethics, and resistance to corporatization and marketization. He is also interested in history of marketing and impact of colonialism on consumer culture.

Other activities

  • Associate Editor, Consumption, Markets and Culture
  • Member, Editorial Review Board of Journal of Macromarketing
  • Member, Editorial Review Board of Journal of Historical Research in Marketing
  • Member, Editorial board of Journal of Marketing Management
  • Guest Co-Editor (with Nikhilesh Dholakia) Special Issue on India of International Journal of Historical Research, 2018
  • Guest Editor, Special Issue on Markets, Marketing and Violence of Journal of Marketing Management, 2018
  • Guest Co-Editor (with Giana Eckhardt and Nikhilesh Dholakia) Special Issue on Globalization of Marketing Ideology of Journal of Macromarketing, 2013
  • Editor, Decision (Journal published by Indian Institute of Management Calcutta), 2008-10

Publications

Edited Books

  • Tadajewski, Mark, Matthew Higgins, Janice Denegri-Knott, and Rohit Varman (2018) Routledge Companion to Critical Marketing, London: Routledge.
  • Vijay, Devi and Rohit Varman (2017) Undoing Boundaries: Alternative Organisations in India, Cambridge University Press.

Recent Journal Articles

  • Sreekumar, Hari, & Varman, Rohit (2019). Vagabonds at the Margins: Acculturation, Subalterns, and Competing Worth. Journal of Macromarketing, 39(1), 37-52.
  • Varman, Rohit and Devi Vijay (2018).  Dispossessing Vulnerable Consumers: Derealization, Desubjectification and Violence. Marketing Theory.
  • Varman, Rohit, Paromita Goswami and Devi Vijay (2018). The Precarity of Respectable Consumption: Normalizing Sexual Violence Against Women. Journal of Marketing Management
  • Bridson, Kerrie, Evans, Jody, Varman, Rohit, Volkov, M., & McDonald, S. (2017). Questioning worth: selling out in the music industry. European Journal of Marketing, 51(9/10), 1650-1668.
  • Varman, Rohit and Ismael Al-Amoudi (2016), Accumulation through Derealisation: How Corporate Violence Remains Unchecked, Human Relations. 69 (10) 1909–1935.
  • Ram M. Vikas, Rohit Varman, and Russell W. Belk (2015) Status, Caste, and Markets in a Changing Indian Village, Journal of Consumer Research, 42(3), 472-98.