The Center Cannot Hold: Consuming the Utopian Marketplace
Year: 2005
Type: preprint
Abstract: This article draws upon the Utopian studies literature to integrate two strands of contemporary consumer research, the study of place and space and the analysis of consumer/marketer relations. Based on a longitudinal study of a festival shopping mall, we provide an emergent theory of how the Utopian marketplace is experienced, a theory that hinges around three interlinked conceptual categories: sensing displace, creating playspace, and performing artscape, which are subverted by the center management's maladroit refreshment of the retail offer. The relevance of this theorization for place-based scholarship, together with its implications for researchers of consumer/marketer relations, is also discussed.
Source: SSRN Electronic Journal
Authors: Pauline Maclaran, Stephen Brown
Institutions: De Montfort University, University of Ulster
Language: English
Subfield: Marketing
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3121661850