SOCI 2070 Shopping

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SOCI 2070Shopping
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Todays Class

• Revolutionizing the Means of Consumption
• Shopping and Power
• Exam Preparation

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Todays Readings

• Required
• Anne Kingston, The Edible Man Dave Nichol,
  Presidents Choice, and the Making of Popular
  Taste, pp. 51-66.
• Deborah Barndt, Tangled Routes Women, Work, and
  Globalization on the Tomato Trail, 113-127.
• Naomi Klein, No Logo, xiii-26 439-446.
• Leanne Delap, Fear, Froth and Sincerity Where
  Do We Go From Here?
• Sophie Kinsella, Confessions of a Shopaholic, pp.
  5-11.
• Supplementary
• George Ritzer, Enchanting a Disenchanting World,
  Ch. 1, Ch. 4 (On Reserve)

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The Means of Consumption

• We are consumed with consumption
• George Ritzer

• Shopping malls
• Superstores
• Big Box and discount chains
• Shopping and tourism (Disney)
• Shopping and public institutions (York Lanes)
• Shopping and new technologies
• Electronic retailers
• Home shopping network

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Cathedrals of Consumption

• What was worshipped in these contemporary
  cathedralswas not an absolute moral order but
  something much more mundane people were
  worshipping shopping and through itthe private
  authorities, the order and corporate power their
  worship makes possible
• Shearing and Stenning, Say Cheese

• Sacred?
• Or at least
• Spectacular
• Extraordinary
• Providing a holistic shopping experience

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McDonaldized Shopping

• 1. The Efficiency of a Mall
• All shops in one location
• One stop shopping
• A large pool of customers
• Promotion of a shopping culture

• 2. Calculability
• Price Club, Sams Club
• Large stores with large piles of goods in large
  sizes
• Bigger is cheaper and better
• Supersize my groceries

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McDonaldized Shopping

• 3. Predictability
• Gap khakis The Big Mac of pants
• Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy The same from
  Yorkdale to West Edmonton Mall to 8th Broadway
  (NYC)

• 4. Control Technology
• Stores designed to maximize the exposure to
  products (IKEA)
• Computer technology to regulate inventory and
  collect customer data

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Surveillance of the Shopper

• In-store cameras
• Anti-theft technology (alarms)
• Collection of consumer data
• The supermarket shopper is one of the most
  closely observed species alive
• Kingston, Reading Kit, 426

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5th Element Irrationality of Rationality

• Big Boxes and suburban sprawl
• Driving out small businesses
• Substitution of consumerism for meaningful
  activities
• The extraordinary becomes mundane

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Corporate Power

• Wal-Mart annual sales that surpass the GDP of
  over 160 countries
• Supermarkets in Canada
• Seven chains control 70 of the food retail
  market
• Loblaws Companies Ltd. is dominant, controlling
  over 30

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The Class System

• (Grocery Store Workers of the world Unite)
• Computerization and competitiveness lead to job
  loss, and/or
• Replacement of full-time with part-time labour
• Pressure for wage freezes and/or rollbacks
• Work intensification and management control

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Branding Behind the Label

• Brand a core meaning/identity that transcends
  the product

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Branding Behind the Label

• Commodify Identity
• Shopping as freedom
• Live to shop/shop to live
• Purchase the lifestyle, set of values, attitude
  of the brand

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Branding Behind the Label

• Commodity Fetishism
• There is labour behind the label

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Social Order and Social Organization

• The aim is not to explain peoples behaviour
  but to be able to be able to explain to
  them/ourselves the socially organized powers in
  which their/our lives are embedded and to which
  their/our activities contribute.
• Dorothy E. Smith, Writing the Social
• The sociological imagination enables us to
  grasp history and biography and the relations
  between the two within society.
• C.W. Mills, The Sociological Imagination

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In-Class Test

• Section B
• Short Essay
• Critically assess concepts and/or theories,
  illustrate central course themes
• Choose 1 of 3
• 10 marks each

• Section A
• Key concepts
• Define and explain the significance of
• Choose 3 of 5
• 5 marks each
• 2 for definition 3 for significance

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• Key Concepts since Test 3
• Imaginary Indian
• Rest in the West
• McDonaldization
• Bureaucracy
• Scientific Management
• Disneyization
• Irrationality of Rationality
• Financial Fitness
• Welfare State
• Commodification
• Neoliberalism
• Lean State
• Entrepreneur of the Self
• Means of Consumption
• Branding

• Key Concepts from Test 3
• Sociological imagination
• Discourse
• Colonialism
• Class system
• Wage labour
• The West and the Rest
• Corporate power
• Commodity Fetishism
• Globalization