This article focuses on the intersection of three areas of Peter Jarvis's work that have profoundly influenced the field of adult education generally and the authors own research trajectories, in particular: (a) learning from everyday life and in social context, (b) incidental and tacit learning in consumer societies in a globalised world (i.e. market) and (c) adult learning, citizenship and activism. Wright and Sandlin outline how Jarvis' work has helped shape the field of adult education, and how they in turn have taken up and built upon these trajectories in their work, both exploring what Jarvis' work can teach us about critical learning in a global consumer culture and also explicating how they and others have used his work as a starting point to move into new avenues of theoretical exploration by reframing the concepts above with a post-humanist, radical view of adult learning and identity development.