The Center Cannot Hold: Consuming the Utopian Marketplace

Pauline Maclaran and Stephen Brown

Journal of Consumer Research, 2005, vol. 32, issue 2, 311-323

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. (c) 2005 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..

Date: 2005
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:jconrs:v:32:y:2005:i:2:p:311-323

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