Student-Centred Theory Building: Pedagogical Collaboration after Mark Fisher

This study presents the findings of a pedagogical case study examining a framework for developing innovative theory in postgraduate marketing education. The article describes a theory-building framework introduced to a postgraduate marketing course in order to enable students to examine, collaboratively and critically, a number of apparent paradoxes within contemporary commercial promotion and consumer behaviour. The article examines the pedagogical context for the framework, invoking the recently published account of Mark Fisher’s ‘exit’ pedagogy. The article focuses on the example of a case study of student-led theory development, tracing a series of stages to examine and explain promotional practices. Features such as critical reasoning, deliberation, synthesis and consensus building are exhibited through the stages of theory building. The approach ultimately contributes to developing an innovative approach to teaching theory through a framework that empowers theory development.