Poetic inquiry, consumer vulnerability: realities of quadriplegia

• Published in: Journal of marketing management Vol. 32; no. 3-4; pp. 357 - 364
• Main Author: Downey, Hilary
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Helensburg Routledge 12.02.2016; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: consumer vulnerability; Emotions; homebound; methodology; Narratives; Paralysis; Poetic inquiry; Poetry; quadriplegia; Studies
• ISSN: 0267-257X; 1472-1376
• DOI: 10.1080/0267257X.2015.1103301

Alternative forms of research interpretation have been utilised within the social sciences. Poetic inquiry, an area of growing interest influences readership affectively as well as intelligently. Incorporating interview data as a poetic submission, this article intends to reflexively capture emotional intensity, hopelessness, liminality, voicelessness and self-transformative realities attendant to those experiencing vulnerability. The unintelligible language that can appropriate the poetic form, supports the elucidation of hidden narratives of more vulnerable inscapes. Consumer vulnerability lends itself to the power of poetry for legitimacy of the moment, where sensory imagery and nonce words attend hiatuses common in scientific discourse. The poetic inquiry, Vulnerability in Parts, is elicited from wider research with homebound consumers conducted over a two-year period, which draws on one homebound consumer's experience of quadriplegia.