ABSTRACT

Consumer vulnerability is of growing importance as a research topic for those exploring wellbeing. This book provides space to critically engage with the conditions, contexts and characteristics of consumer vulnerability, which affect how people experience and respond to the marketplace and vice versa.

Focussing on substantive, ethical, social and methodological issues, this book brings together key researchers in the field and practitioners who work with vulnerability on a daily basis. Organised into 4 sections, it considers consumer vulnerability and key life stages, health and wellbeing, poverty, and exclusion. Methodologically the chapters draw on qualitative research, employing a variety of methods from interview, to the use of poetry, film and other cultural artefacts.

This book will be of interest to marketing and consumer research scholars and students and also to researchers in other disciplines including sociology, public policy and anthropology, and practitioners, policy makers and charitable organisations working with vulnerable groups.

chapter 1|10 pages

Introduction

part I|66 pages

Mapping the domain of consumer vulnerability

chapter 2|18 pages

Consumer vulnerability

Foundations, phenomena, and future investigations

chapter 3|12 pages

An inclusive approach to consumer vulnerability

Exploring the contributions of intersectionality

chapter 4|12 pages

A story of The Uncondemned

Seeking justice and empowerment in marketed representations of vulnerability

chapter 5|11 pages

Asking for trouble

Reflections on researching bereaved consumers

part II|65 pages

Consumer vulnerability and key life stages

chapter 7|10 pages

Children as vulnerable consumers

chapter 8|14 pages

Consuming childhood grief

chapter 9|14 pages

An adolescent-centric approach to consumer vulnerability

New implications for public policy

chapter 10|13 pages

Care leavers' transitions to adulthood

Challenges to self in adapting to new consumer roles

chapter 11|12 pages

Older people

Citizens in a consumer society

part III|27 pages

Consumer vulnerability, health and wellbeing

chapter 13|13 pages

Social exclusion

A perspective on consumers with disabilities