From Order to Chaos: How Consumers Lose Control of Risks (and of Themselves)

Abstract Consumers are exposed to a growing array of risks in an increasingly complex and uncertain world. Prior research has shown that they can navigate and even benefit from certain risks through edgework. However, the proliferation of credit and debt has led many into over-indebtedness—a dysfunctional condition in which control over risk is lost. This study examines the narratives and lived experiences of over-indebted consumers through the lens of chaos narratives. The downward trajectory begins with the initial motivation to access credit, followed by precipitating events and aggravating factors, ultimately leading to chaotic experiences. Adopting a sociocultural perspective, we explore how consumers misperceive risks and fail in their risk management efforts. We identify four dimensions that define consumers’ chaos narratives: emotional battering, unmaking the world, living on immediacy, and loss of consumption and threatened subsistence. As they transition from order to chaos, consumers encounter escalating risks that intensify in unforeseen and harmful ways. We describe this experience as spiraling down with escalating risks—a progressive, disorienting descent marked by compounding vulnerability. This process severely affects consumer identity and well-being, excluding over-indebted individuals from the consumption domain.