Dec 25 2006
Call of the Mall(sic)
“Call of the Mall’ by Paco Underhill, retail ethnographer at large and CEO of Envirosell is an engaging part observation and part analysis, part personal reflection part commentary on American shopping behavior – all through the viewpoint of Malls – one of the more banal yet fascinating temples of capitalistic endeavor. The book grips you right from the beginning with the one liners in the Prologue (here is an excerpt):
“Why are we here?
We’re here to buy stuff
We’re here because we’re bored
We’re here because tomorrow’s Mothers’ Day
We’re here for the new Avril Lavigne CD
We’re here for emancipation
We’re here for lip gloss
We’re here because our mom made us come
We’re looking for sheets and towels
We’re looking for sex and love
We’re looking for self esteem
We’re looking for jeans that fit…….”
As I read Call of the Mall and reflected on the retail revolution underway in India, I thought (with due apologies to Arthur Miller’s quote on newsprint), “A mall, then, is a nation connecting with itself”.
This book reminded me that malls are much more than simple shopping sites. Malls are indeed legitimate social interaction spaces and initiation grounds for certain kinds of (teenagers, first time shoppers, binging consumers) socially sanctioned behavior. And indeed, malls are safer, more secure and sanitized than the otherwise chaotic urban cities they surround.
And yet, malls can be so much more interesting if they also become sites for community connections, experimental sites for new kinds of consumption, and ultimately sites that show us bizarre, friendly, and real faces of the multi-racial, multi-cultural world we live in.
Perhaps the world’s largest malls emerging in China, and someday in India, will show the way through performance art, community events, outreach programs, and most fundamentally relevant merchandise!
