Devising Consumption: Cultural Economies of Insurance, Credit and Spending

Liz McFall

ISBN 10: 0415694396 / ISBN 13: 9780415694391

Published by Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2014

About this Item

New copy - Usually dispatched within 4 working days.

Seller Inventory # B9780415694391

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Devising Consumption: Cultural Economies of Insurance, Credit and Spending
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Publication Date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0415694396
• ISBN 13: 9780415694391
• Binding: Hardback
• Condition: New
• Weight: 498 grams

About this title

Synopsis

The book explores the vital role played by the financial service industries in enabling the poor to consume over the last hundred and fifty years. Spending requires means, but these industries offered something else as well – they offered practical marketing devices that captured, captivated and enticed poor consumers. Consumption and consumer markets depend on such devices but their role has been poorly understood both in the social sciences and in business studies and marketing.

While the analysis of consumption and markets has been carved up between academics and practitioners who have been interested in either their social and cultural life or their economic and commercial organisation, consumption continues to be driven by their combination. Devising consumption requires practical mixtures of commerce and art whether the product is an insurance policy or the next gadget in the internet of things . By making the case for a pragmatic understanding of how ordinary, everyday consumption is orchestrated, the book offers an alternative to orthodox approaches, which should appeal to interdisciplinary audiences interested in questions about how markets work and why it matters.

About the Author

Liz McFall is Head of Sociology at the Open University. Her work explores how markets are made especially for challenging or controversial products like industrial life insurance, doorstep and payday loans. In ‘Devising Consumption’ she offers a pragmatic approach to understanding how technical, material, artistic and metaphysical elements collide in consumer markets. Liz is author of Advertising: a cultural economy (2004), co-editor of Conduct: sociology and social worlds (2008) and co-editor of the Journal of Cultural Economy.