Professor Claire Langhamer in seven

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1. What can history teach us about consumer behaviour here and now?

Fundamentally, an understanding of history allows us to place current behaviour in context. It reminds us that behaviour is subject to long-term shifts and to quite dramatic short-term changes. Thinking about the past helps us to better understand the present and, possibly, build towards a better future.

2. Much of your work focuses on the history of feeling, but it is often difficult for researchers to capture this accurately. What is the biggest challenge of researching emotion?

One of the biggest challenges is understanding what it is we are actually researching when we study feeling. Feeling states are not always readily, or easily, articulated and, as a result, they are not always captured within historical archives. Feeling itself is also contingent on historical context. The meanings and implications of feelings – such as love, anger or happiness – in the past could be quite different from their ...