International audienceFamilies represent an important context for understanding and addressing the various forms of risk experienced by consumers. This article defines and discusses the concept of risk as it applies to the familial unit, with a particular focus on the liminal transitions that occur within families and the resiliency required for families to identify and adopt effective coping strategies to manage these transitions. A framework is proposed that offers researchers an approach for applying concepts related to family risk to various consumption-related problems and issues. This framework constitutes a starting point that can be developed and expanded to facilitate a deeper understanding of the internal and external forces that influence families and their well-being, and the role consumption plays therein. Potential avenues for future transformative consumer research are proposed in this important but under-developed field

The narrativizing of practices is a textual 'way of operating', having its own procedures and tactics. […] Shouldn't we recognize its scientifi c legitimacy by assuming that instead of being a remainder that cannot be, or has not yet been, eliminated from discourse , narrativity has a necessary function in it, and that a theory of narration is indissociable from a theory of practices, as its condition as well as its production. (de Certeau 1988: 78)

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