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Patterns of consumption and patterns of distinction in the context of socially determined justifications for poverty and wealth

The paper analyzes the consumption practices, which people attribute to markers of poverty and wealth, and the ways of how people build a system of social inequalities around such markers on the base of economic, social and moral criteria. We show that consumption proved to be not only the economic activity but mainly that of a social and appraisal character; and can state that the difference in systems of «alternative inequalities» relates to the fact that people usually address to their different justification registers, i.e. «regimes of fairness», which are based on their different basic values. How competently a person may apply such justification registers could be either the obstacle to or a source of recovering from poverty. These conclusions are illustrated by materials of the empiric study for the concrete region.

Yechevskaya O. G. [email protected]

Keywords: urban poverty people' understanding of poverty and wealth production consumption social structure