Ethnographic study reveals acts of accepting, disregarding, and wandering in post-industrial residents, highlighting how persistent social nothingness shapes consumer intentionality.
Key Points
To examine how individuals establish purpose and negotiate meaning within an environment marked by persistent social nothingness and long-term economic scarcity.
Conducted an ethnographic study examining the lived experiences of residents in Wigan, a post-industrial English town.
Applied Susie Scott’s sociological lens of social nothingness to analyze patterns of consumer intentionality and everyday coping behaviors.
Demonstrated that residents continually navigate persistent nothingness through informal practices of accepting, disregarding, and wandering.
Showed that consumer intentionality transcends simple binary divisions of commissive and omissive actions, finding that feelings of being stuck or lost can actively generate meaning.