Research Overview

Situated within the intersection between Consumer Culture Theory and the sociology of risk, my doctoral research explores the status and function of voluntary risk-taking within consumption, markets, and consumer culture. It is based on a stratified epistemological strategy which centres on both consumers’ personal and micro-social experiences of risk but also the broader political, cultural, and ideological factors that shape and influence their experiences without their conscious awareness.

Drawing upon the explanatory value of concepts including the life course perspective, ‘edgework’, ‘epistemological community’, and ‘consumer counter-mythology’, I investigate the epistemic and social functions that artistic and creative expression serves for those who have navigated risks to their sense of ordered existence.