ABSTRACT
Poor consumers have generally not occupied a very prominent position in recent decades of consumption research. Consumers with limited budgets face specific consumption choices and limited access to markets; hence, they develop specific financial practices. This chapter discusses prevailing insights in and approaches to poverty, financing and processes of social exclusion in contemporary consumption research aiming to depict research gaps and future research challenges. It outlines the contemporary theoretical approaches to issues of poverty, financing and inequality in consumption and in particular the (lack of) inclusion of these topics in approaches to consumption research. The chapter presents the empirical insight from studies on consumption and financing among poor consumer households. It describes the role of recent developments in credit consumption and debt, and examines implications in terms of emerging processes of financial inequality. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the main theoretical challenges and research gaps related to above discussions.
