Abstract
Looking at the couples situating their own lives in the context of over-indebtedness is helpful for the recognition of how closely the question of guilt and the attribution of guilt are associated with the perception of over-indebtedness, and of how a shared couple perspective and a shared or separate lifeworld are constructed by this. The central finding from the study is that the middle-class people concerned are seeking ‘new orientations’. They also have to do so in the face of the changed situation – even if these orientations are not so new at all, but are embedded in familiar modes such as the employment society, despite the ‘precariousness’ of situations. In the end, this amounts to a theoretical discussion.
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Notes
- 1.
The negotiating counterpart is the immediate environment (the family, neighbourhood, community, etc.) and socially institutionalised actors, such as bank employees, insolvency administrators, lawyers, creditors, business clients, etc.
- 2.
In terms of the sociology of inequality, this would be a link to K. Marx. For him, the material basis is a prerequisite for class consciousness (cf. Joas, 2007).
- 3.
At this point, class classification is more in line with Weber and Bourdieu. Here, knowledge and prestige, but also power and habitus are used as variables to determine inequality in society (cf. Joas, 2007).
- 4.
See Beck et al. 1996.
- 5.
See Beck et al. 1996.
- 6.
“What is demonized as value decay generates value orientation for the second modernity” (Beck, 1997, p. 17).
- 7.
On individualised overload/individualisation in Beck’s sense, see Sect. 3.4.
References
Beck, U. (1997). Kinder der Freiheit. Suhrkamp.
Beck, U., Giddens, A., & Lash, S. (1996). Reflexive Modernisierung. Eine Kontroverse. Suhrkamp.
Joas, H. (Hrsg.). (2007). Lehrbuch der Soziologie. Frankfurt a. M.: Campus (Kapitel 8).
Kron, T. (2010). Zeitgenössische soziologische Theorien: Zentrale Beiträge aus Deutschland. VS Verlag.
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Müller, M., Pfeil, P., Dengel, U., Donath, L. (2023). Concluding Remarks and Review of Results. In: Identity Under Pressure. Springer, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-41855-7_8
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