Malls, modernity and consumption: Accra's malls’ new consumption culture and the Ghanaian middle class as consumers of ‘glocal’ modernity

Alexander Kofi Eduful

Chapter 29 in Research Handbook on the Sociology of Consumption, 2026, pp 341-353 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter investigates how malls and consumption shape each other in neoliberal Accra, Ghana. The study uses both qualitative and quantitative methods involving two malls, and hinges on two theoretical concepts to better understand how malls are positioned to attract patrons. It argues that the ‘one-stop shop’ policy, construed through the concept of ‘malls as multiple loci of consumption’, has led to children's playgrounds and food courts being key sites of new consumption culture. Further, in grounding malls’ sustainability, the chapter argues that operators’ deployment of ‘polite mannerism’ represents an appropriation of a category of traditional cultural values that serves to additionally make malls attractive to their target markets. Thus, local culture and global mall culture interact to shape the Ghanaian middle class, who become consumers and, in fact, subjects of ‘glocal’ modernity, as opposed to pure global modernity.

Keywords: Malls; Consumption; Glocal modernity; Multiple loci; Accra (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035310500
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