IMMIGRATION, GENDER AND CONSUMER ACCULTURATION: A journey into the meaningful world of food consumption practices of Romanian women in Italy.

Based on qualitative data on Romanian female immigrants to Italy and their food consumption practices, the thesis argues that these women make use of the symbolic resources originated in the marketplace, in order to re-negotiate their ascribed traditional gender identity, as well as the dominated position as immigrants in Italy. In this way, the research adds a new dimension to the postassimilationist stream of research of consumer acculturation, arguing that even low-status and low income cross-border migrants who cannot participate fully in the consumer culture can use its symbolic resources, namely the marketplace representation of the modern woman, to create hybrid gender identities. Yet, such negotiation does not happen in a completely free way, as the identity positions they can occupy are given by the power discourses in the society. Such results also add to the discussion between the postfeminist praise of the market as a site of women's liberation and the second wave feminists, who criticize this view arguing low-status women do not benefit from these effects of the market, because they cannot participate in the consumer culture. This thesis shows that although poor immigrant women do not have the resources to participate fully in the consumer culture, they can nonetheless make use of the symbolic resources it offers to resist their ascribed role.