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Subsistence Marketplaces: Looking Back, Looking Forward

illinois.edu). Over the past decade and a half, the study of subsistence marketplaces has garnered significant attention among marketing scholars, as evidenced by the burgeoning body of literature on the topic. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing (JPPM) has played an instrumental role in nurturing scholarship in this arena. The journal’s focus on the nexus between marketing, public policy, and societal wellbeing (Stewart 2013) finds a natural confluence with the inherent goals of subsistence marketplaces research. Prior work published in JPPM has (1) advanced our understanding of subsistence marketplaces, (2) informed social initiatives in subsistence communities (Viswanathan et al. 2009), and (3) articulated policy recommendations for enhancing consumer and entrepreneurial well-being in subsistence contexts (Viswanathan et al. 2012). This JPPM special section provides further impetus to research subsistence marketplaces. The introduction to the special section takes the form of a narrative looking back and looking forward in relation to the stream of research under the rubric of subsistence marketplaces. The articles in this special section and other articles that may appear in a subsequent issue of JPPM stemmed from the fifth of a biennial conference series on subsistence marketplaces. The call for papers for this special section especially welcomed papers presented at the Fifth Subsistence Marketplaces Conference (June 13–15, 2014) but was open to any contributor(s) regardless of participation in the conference. After providing a background of the conference, we summarize the articles in this special section and briefly discuss the stream of work on subsistence marketplaces, the pathways traversed by previous research, and potential avenues forward.