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Title: |
Community, consumerism and credit: the experience of an urban community in North-West Ireland. |
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Reference: |
Community Work and Family, 14(3), August 2011, pp.257-274. |
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ISSN paper: |
1366-8803 |
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ISSN online: |
1469-3615 |
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Abstract: |
The problems of debt and consumerism are global phenomena. For people on low incomes, consumer credit is often used to pay for essentials; these people pay substantially more for their credit than the better-off. The study addresses how global forces of credit and consumerism are experienced at a local level and what local collective strategies can be developed to counter such forces. The study was conducted in a relatively deprived, urban, public housing estate in the City of Derry, Northern Ireland. The community can be characterised as having strong links of shared communitarian values and informal systems of mutual aid, and weak ties into the wider world producing a sense of insularity, isolation and stagnation. The impact of debt and consumerism in the community was investigated using 4 focus groups held with representatives of key constituencies (women, teenagers, children and older people.) The constituent groups of the local community reported a diverse experience of strain, isolation, powerlessness and guilt. Five key themes were generated from analysis of the data; these themes described the consumerist pressures and reported the financial struggles and resulting threat to well-being. The themes are: the young consumer; being a good mother; celebration and ritual; the pattern of credit and debt; and managing and not managing. |
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Format: |
article; |
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Topics: |
children; communities; debt; mothers; older people; personal finance; poverty; young people; |
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Record ID: |
www.scie-socialcareonline.org.uk/profile.asp?guid=399a2cb5-c60c-4a44-aca2-4f0d7581beaf |
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