Poverty in consumer culture: towards a transformative social representation

In this article, we consider the representations of poverty within consumer culture. We focus on four main themes – social exclusion, vulnerability, pleasure and contentment – that capture some of the associations that contemporary understandings have made with poverty. For each theme, we consider the portrayals of poverty from the perspective of key agents (such as marketers, media, politicians) and then relate this to more emic representations of poverty by drawing on a range of contemporary poverty alleviating projects from around the world. We conclude with a set of guidelines for relevant stakeholders to bear in mind when elaborating their representations of poverty. These guidelines may act as a platform to transform marginalising representations of poverty into more empowering representations.

Keywords:

agent (philosophy)  consumer culture  consumer research  consumers  contentment  culture  pleasure  poverty  representation  social marginality  stakeholders  transformative consumer research  vulnerability (psychology) 

Citation:

Kathy Hamilton, Maria G. Piacentini, Emma Banister, Andres Barrios, Christopher P. Blocker, Catherine A. Coleman, Ahmet Ekici, Hélène Gorge, Martina Hutton, Françoise Passerard, and Bige Saatcioglu (2014). Poverty in consumer culture: towards a transformative social representation. Journal of Marketing Management, 30, Pages 1833-1857. https://doi.org/10.1080/0267257X.2014.967929