ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates how findings from research on the connection between poverty and shame (Walker 2014; Chase and Bantebya-Kyomuhendo 2014) connect with Baker et al.’s (2005) perception that people’s lack of control and power within the ‘market’ place (understood broadly here) may be heightened by how others, those either in positions of authority and power or within more immediate social interactions, respond to them. Such ‘consumer vulnerability’ therefore stems from the fact that a) certain ‘consumption goals’ cannot be fulfilled, and b) the experience of failing to meet them affects personal and social perceptions of the self (Baker et al. 2005). Situated within the disciplines of social policy, sociology and anthropology, the study was executed without any real cognisance of the concept of the ‘vulnerable consumer’. Yet post hoc interactions with scholars in marketing and related fields revealed that much of what had evolved from this work resonated with the idea of consumer vulnerability. After presenting evidence of how the ‘vulnerable consumer’, though not previously named as such, clearly emerges from this research, the chapter ends with some reflections on the links between these distinct bodies of work and the possibilities for disciplinary cross-over in terms of the implications of its findings.
