I received my PhD in cultural anthropology in 1982.  I also pursued a postdoctoral fellowship in marketing at the University of Arizona in 1982-1983. Between 1975 and 1990, I worked as an applied anthropologist on economic development problems in more than a dozen West African nations.  In 1990, I became a full-time academic teaching about consumer behavior, marketing and globalization, and research employing qualitative data.

Since January 2014, I have been a full time professor at the University of Southern Denmark. There while pursuing my ongoing research interests, I have been work with a wonderful group of colleagues with specialties in anthropology, marketing, Continental social theory and philosophy to animate a new education, Marketing and Management Anthropology. For more on this see: http://epicpeople.org/pblog17/

The School of Management, University of Bath invited me into the fold in February 2012 as Professor of Consumer Marketing. There, I pursued research and teaching under two banners, the first wass sustainable business practices in which area research has focused on fair trade marketing, demand side energy use, and sustainable agricultural production strategies. The second banner, was that of consumer culture theory.

Before that I taught for a couple of years as Distinguished Professor of Sustainable Business Practices at the University of Wyoming, and before that as the PESTMART Distinguished Professor in the Norton School of Family and Consumer Sciences. Before that I taught as the E. J. Faulkner College Professor of Agribusiness and Marketing at the University of Nebraska, and have also taught at the University of Colorado-Denver, Cal State University Long Beach, University of South Florida, Southern Denmark University, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, and IAE-Sorbonne, Dauphine University and EAP-ESCP, Paris, France.

I have consulted for Abt  & Assocs, Chemonics, Development Alternatives, Jackson Hole Energy Sustainability Project, Transfair USA, Kraft Foods, Vertical Communications, Colorado River Outfitters Association, JCPenney, Rainbird, USAID, United Nations Environmental Program, and CARE.