1. Money, Sacrificial Work, and Poor Consumers.
- Author
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Varman, Rohit, Sreekumar, Hari, and Belk, Russell W
- Subjects
PERSONAL finance ,POOR people ,SELF-sacrifice ,IMMIGRANTS ,CONSUMPTION (Economics) ,ETHNOLOGY - Abstract
This is an ethnography among poor migrants from Kerala, India to the Middle East. This study offers insights into how the poor accumulate sacrificial money through sufferings and self-abnegation, and earmark it for consumption in Kerala. The hardships endured to earn the sacrificial money transform it into a sacred object. The phenomena of accumulation, earmarking, and meaning making of sacrificial money by the poor can be understood through the concept of sacrificial work. Sacrificial work is a spatially demarcated circuit of accumulation of money through hardships and its conflict-ridden transfer to family, community, and self for consumption. In sacrificial work, the poor erect a boundary around this money, and earmark it as caring, communal, and transformative. By delineating the various aspects of sacrificial work, this study brings to the center a behavior that has, in spite of its ubiquity, been relegated to the margins of consumer research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2022
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