Reimagining Society Through Retail Practice

Joel Hietanen, Pekka Mattila, John W. Schouten, Antti Sihvonen and Sammy Toyoki

Journal of Retailing, 2016, vol. 92, issue 4, 411-425

Abstract: Marketing scholars with sociological and anthropological leanings have made great strides in uncovering strategic and theoretical implications of consumer collectives and consumption-driven market phenomena. It has not been very common that their perspectives have been brought to bear on retailing practice or theory. This ethnographic study examines a highly successful, globalizing, consumer-driven pop-up retail festival for its potential lessons about social movements. It reveals new insights into logics and potentialities for retailing as a field of affordances for reimagining society and social practices. It points especially to how eruptions of ‘carnivalesque mood’ unite everyday citizens to imagine change in a highly regulated social context and how they utilize the practice of retailing collectively to actualize societal change.

Keywords: Affordance; Agency; Carnivalesque; Mood; Consumer-driven; Pop-up (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jouret:v:92:y:2016:i:4:p:411-425

DOI: 10.1016/j.jretai.2016.05.005

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