RIM 2025 Research Forum

The Race in the Marketplace Research Network held a Forum in Cape Town, South Africa earlier this year. The RIM Forum’s co-organizer's, Sonya Grier, Guillaume Johnson, Anthony Kwame Harrison, and Kevin Thomas, reflect on this groundbreaking event:

The Race in the Marketplace (RIM) Research Network, an international multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary initiative, recently held its 2025 Research Forum in Cape Town, South Africa. The biennial event brought together scholars, practitioners, and thought leaders from the US, Brazil, Europe, and multiple African countries to advance scholarly and practical understandings of race across diverse markets. Prior Forums were held in Washington DC (2017) and Paris, France (2019). The 2025 Forum explored the theme "Past in Present - Pathways to the Future". The Forum's location in Cape Town provided a unique backdrop for examining the intersection of race and the marketplace, given the city's rich history and ethnoracial diversity. The Forum also built on longstanding relationships, as two RIM co-founders conducted their dissertation research in South Africa.

The Forum started before attendee arrival with RIM’s Stairway to South Africa, a year-long series of talks to prepare conference attendees and other interested participants with a baseline understanding of racial dynamics in South Africa. The 2025 RIM Research Forum program covered a wide range of topics, including:

• Historical perspectives on the mutual construction of race and markets;

• Race and technology in marketplaces;

• Decolonial approaches to marketing and consumer research;

• Intersectionality in market contexts, and

• A session on healing and reconciliation for those who engage in this transformative work!

The presentations, panel discussions, posters, and interactive sessions, all reflected RIM's core values of interdisciplinarity, critical theoretics, intersectionality, and global perspectives.

The conference began with a public event that included forum attendees and local community members. The event featured a provocative film about women working in wine vineyards, followed by an esteemed panel that prompted discussions on intersectional issues surrounding workers' rights, gender inequality, marketing, and the environmental and social costs of the products we consume. The discussion was followed by a lively opening reception that extended well beyond its scheduled end time.

Being attuned to context and integrating the arts are central features of RIM Forums and the RIM community, and conference organizers made intentional efforts to include opportunities for attendees to reflect on local racial dynamics. This included a private tour of the District Six Museum, offering a poignant exploration of forced removals based on race during apartheid. Tours were led by storytellers directly connected to the tragic events, providing a deeply personal perspective on the impact of racial policies. Attendees feasted on local Cape Malay cuisine and enjoyed music by the award-winning local band Kujenga at the closing celebratory dinner.

RIM Forum participants noted their appreciation for the opportunity to discuss issues of race openly with others without facing the challenges often encountered at conventional academic conferences. This safe space allowed for candid discussions linking scholarly work with personal experiences and heavy topics related to race in the marketplace.

The RIM 2025 Research Forum proved to be a transformative experience for attendees and strengthened RIM’s global research community. As the network continues to grow and evolve, RIM intends to play a crucial role in transforming our understanding of race and its intersections with various social constructs in global marketplaces, ultimately working towards greater empathy, understanding, and actionable change within communities around the world. RIM is also excited about being a part of TCR 2025; members of the RIM track are working intently to integrate many of the Forum learnings.

The TCR Digital Outreach team are so appreciative of the work the RIM Research Network does. We encourage you to join and learn more.