Social representations of consumers in hypermarkets of Ribeirão Preto (SP) and São Carlos (SP)

• Grant number: 13/27177-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: March 01, 2014
• End date: February 28, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Geography - Human Geography
• Principal Investigator: Eda Maria Góes
• Grantee: Alessandro Bernardes Pereira
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia (FCT). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Presidente Prudente. Presidente Prudente , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 11/20155-3 - Socio-economic cohesion and contemporary spatial practices: cities of medium size and consumption, AP.TEM

Abstract

Contemporary transformations on consumption involve several factors according to characteristics of the different companies and the globalization of capital process. In Brazil, among the various patterns of inequalities, the new spatial practices related to consumption are a part of elemental analysis, as embodying actions and objects coming from different social vectors, both those from the economic logic that comes as the number of logical representational. Notably trends that give impetus to these processes are also, to some extent, these results, referring to the degree of complexity surrounding the issue. Identify the role of social representations in the dynamics of the new practices of contemporary consumption means identifying the representational changes - and the positions generated by these - that occurred in the context of the social thought of the affected population segments. The visibility of new social practices related to consumption can be seized in locations such as hypermarkets, although showing greater or lesser share of sales according to market fluctuations and dynamics of competing forms, featuring a contemporary branch of the new forms, particularly of consumption. One of the factors that significantly influence the new consumption practices is the expansion of banking services and access to credit, with emphasis on the widespread use of the credit card at these locations. This study aims to investigate the social representations formed by consumer credit card users in hypermarkets , within each city surveyed , thus compounding a general framework about the relationship between urban spaces and consumption , allowing a characterization of locational choices and logic linked to spatial practices and representations of private spaces for collective use . Social representations are present in societies and their study may contribute to understanding aspects of the positions of the respective social groups. The phenomenon of social representation was identified and became the object of understanding in Social Psychology through the theory of social representations.