Book launch: The Hipster Economy and Researching Poverty and Austerity

We are thrilled to invite you to the launch of two new books which are vital in exploring contemporary consumption cultures and the socio-economic challenges we face which include: 

• How does late capitalism establish new consumption hierarchies based on class?
• What are the complex challenges of poverty and food insecurity and how do austerity measures exacerbate them?
• What new forms of food cultures are emerging and how?
• How are these broad socio-economic issues shaping our urban spaces, communities, and businesses?

The Hipster Economy: Taste and authenticity in late modern capitalism, authored by Alessandro Gerosa analyses how the notion of authenticity as an aspiration shapes the consumption habits of individuals and has driven western societies from the emergence of capitalism to today. It offers a novel conceptualisation of aesthetics, class, and consumption, traces the resurgence of craft industries and maps how the hipster economy shapes urban spaces and new food cultures. 

Researching Poverty and Austerity: Theoretical Approaches, Methodologies and Policy Applications, edited by Caroline Moraes, Morven G. McEachern and Deirdre O’Loughlin curates a collection of relevant research addressing the challenges of poverty and the political-economic measures that perpetuate it. The authors balance quantitative methods for measuring food insecurity and the impacts of austerity with diverse qualitative methods that give voice to lived experiences of financial precarity and poverty. 

This event is hosted and supported by the Centre for Responsible Business and organised in collaboration with the Centre on Household Assets and Savings Management (CHASM) and the Birmingham Sociology Network.