The present article intends to discuss the use of the anthropological approach of the consumption and especially, the ethnographic method, in the academic area of Marketing. Initially, some classic texts in the field of Anthropology of Consumption will be commented, in order to emphasize the specificity of the contribution of that discipline to the studies about consumption - the perception that this phenomenon is, first of all, symbolic and collective. Then, we analyze the manners by which ethnography was used in the studies published in journals of Marketing and in the academic production of a research and teaching institute in Brazil. The anthropological reflection found in the studies commented here serves, as a whole, to open new intellectual prospects, promoting a critical debate concerning the positivistic and reductionistic inclination present in the field of investigations about the consumer in the area of Marketing.
Anthropology; consumption; culture; ethnography; consumer behavior