"Cast Away awhile" Consumers' (re) construction of identity after having escaped a spell of financial hardship and its influence on symbolic brand consumption

Without neglecting the importance and fruitfulness of researching (newly) impoverished consumer populations in culturally oriented consumer research, this study claims that only a lopsided account of marketplace vulnerability... [ view full abstract ]

Without neglecting the importance and fruitfulness of researching (newly) impoverished consumer populations in culturally oriented consumer research, this study claims that only a lopsided account of marketplace vulnerability experiences and identity issues, being restrictively tied to the dark side of financial strain in respective psycho-socio-cultural spaces, has been provided. Therefore, in light of new social risks and a proliferation of transient types of relative income poverty in Western societies, gaining an understanding of how consumers exit from a spell of reduced income and adapt to an increase in their income is pivotal. In this context, the research envisages to explore whether or not identity shifts are experienced regarding pre-exit and post-exit-transition lifestyles and how potential reconstructions of the self are translated into consumption behaviour at the level of the brand. Theoretically the study contributes to gaining a more nuanced and multidimensional understanding of vulnerable consumers and the self-in-process considering experiences of flux and evolution. Currently data is collected using autobiographies chronicling stories about German consumers` experiences of routes into and out out of precarious income conditions. These narrative accounts are used to inform phenomenological interviewing. Preliminary findings from both autobiographical analysis and a sample of interviews are presented at “AM2015".