Description
Devising Consumption
Cultural Economies of Insurance, Credit and Spending
CRESC Series
Author: Mcfall Liz
Language: EnglishSubjects for Devising Consumption:
Keywords
Young Men; industrial; Industrial Assurance; assurance; Friendly Society People; Liverpool Victoria Friendly Society; Insurable Interest; Vice Versa; Industrial Life Assurance; Guaranteed Surrender Values; UK Industry; Approved Society; Industrial Offices; Check Trading; Ghost Signs; Sir Frederick Eden; Industrial Assurance Companies; Working Class Mutualism; Ordinary Branch; Market Devices; Post Office Scheme; Friendly Societies; Friendly Societies Act; Private Fact; Mortality Laws; Real Life Agents; Car Insurance
Publication date: 09-2014
Support: Print on demand
Publication date: 12-2015
195 p. · 15.6x23.4 cm · Paperback
Description
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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.
Introduction 1. Unearthing the ‘Very Dirt of Private Fact’: The work of market devices 2. Groovy Like the Market: Problems with fit and adaptation in government schemes to insure the poor 3. Organising Charisma: The role of doorstep finance agents 4. Following the Lines from Conversation to Marketing and Back 5. The Practical Heart of Markets 5.1. Building the Industrial Assurance Portfolio 5.2. Door-Stepping the (Relatively) Affluent Poor Epilogue