The purpose of this editorial is to call out the practice of using identity-first language and labelling consumers and customers, describing them as “vulnerable” and offers practical strategies for person-first language of consumers/customers experiencing vulnerability.
The authors use Australian Indigenous and Indigenous women’s standpoint theory to reflect on their own use of terminology in the field of consumer/customer vulnerability and use their personal experiences to offer a series of practical strategies.
The authors propose six motivations for the use of person-first language in the field of consumer/customer vulnerability: easy to use, an English language convention, common practice, easy to measure, unintentional ignorance and an “us vs them” mindset.
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to call out the practice of using identity-first language in the consumer/customer vulnerability field and offer practical strategies to enable person-first language.
