Shopping malls and new consumption and social control practices in Ribeirão Preto and São Carlos

• Grant number: 14/01760-1
• 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: Gabriela de Souza Hochleitner Lourenço
• 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

Given the pace of urban restructuring in Brazil, there is a search by consumption spaces in locations strategically designed by developers. Because they are produced for the consumption of large-scale study of shopping centers has highlighted the importance for the understanding of those logics, because they have the potential to alter the flow of consumers of cities and regions, as well as the spatial practices that reflect their daily lives. This project is to be attentive to such spatial practices in its relationship with the following contents of the shopping centers (SARLO, 2009, p.13- 31) in Ribeirão Preto and São Carlos: 1. its homogeneity aesthetic (and architectural) and its characterization as a space of connections, both directly related to globalization; 2. the alternative to public space represented by them , and ultimately the city itself , while free option (almost) disorders, insecurity, surprise (instability ?), dirt, weatherproof ..., a demonstration that the market is able to ensure that the state can no longer (or never failed and most recently has become intolerable ?); 3. its ability to generate desires, through images, providing only partial satisfaction via consumption, but satisfaction via visual access (see and be seen) as a desire directed, apparently without tension, and the participation of different groups of patrons - including those who can consume their goods and those who can not. Thus, the focus of research lies in the relationship between space, social control and consumption in medium-sized citie.