The article describes the implementation process of a critical approach in marketing, based on the ontology of critical realism, developed in England and Brazil by a Brazilian researcher. The investigation, inspired at the onset by a particular critical approach developed in England in the early 1990s - the socalled rethinking marketing -, brought culture into the critical approach when, in Brazil, the researcher began to use in particular ways the argument that knowledge produced in the Anglo-Saxon world does not apply in Brazil. Through a confessional approach, consisting of description of dialogues between researcher and informants and corresponding reflections and practices, the article shows how difficult it is to develop a critical approach in marketing. The author argues that researchers in Brazil should, through the promotion of intercultural research, give emphasis to the knowledge mobilised by less disciplined informants in Brazil and challenge the cultural argument that knowledge produced in Brazil does not apply in the Anglo-Saxon world. In the end the article shows how this critical approach could raise the relevance of academic research.
critique; marketing; critical realism