hanging out at the mall instances of tactical consumption in the adolescent social world

8/9/2019 Hanging Out at the Mall Instances of Tactical Consumption in the Adolescent Social World

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HANGING OUT AT THE MALL:

Instances of Tactical Consumption in the Adolescent Social World

Jennifer Smith

Department of SociologyMcMaster UniversityPaper presented at the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Toronto, Canada, August 1997.

The paper discusses the adolescent social activity of hanging out in shopping malls as a collection of

examples of the tactical consumption of space. Based on data gathered in interviews with seniorhigh school students, the research examines how individuals insert their own social agendas and

uses into a tightly scripted commercial setting. Teenagers have an ambivalent relationship with

malls, which are simultaneously welcoming--as a relatively safe environment, away from the often

harsh realities of the Canadian climate--and hostile, thanks to the overt expectation of commodity

consumption imposed on all, and the suspicions placed upon the adolescent population in particular.

By negotiating and often subverting the mall's agendas, adolescents produce a social space forthemselves in which to interact and experiment. As quasi-public space, however, the mall is far

from unproblematic as a site of social life; hanging out involves loitering in the food court--a tactical

consumption--just as it does shopping, pointing to how successful the mall can be at teaching

adolescents to become adults.

Shopping malls are an urban staple, in both the sense of their function and their

preponderance in the contemporary cityscape. Designed to facilitate commercialism, malls offer

themselves as places to gather and meet others, or to enjoy the solitude generated by an anonymous

social milieu. As such, malls draw upon our collective desire for public space as a means of

making them attractive settings for consumption. Public space, ideally offering one and all the

freedom to assemble and pursue activities, is the communal stage upon which individuals gather to

create meaning in and from their social experience. Traditionally located in a city's streets, parks,

and squares, public space is becoming increasingly scarce as municipal funds for maintenance

decrease and crime--and its attendant fear--associated with those spaces increases. More and more,

people are turning to the shopping mall, a quasi-public space, as a setting for their social lives.

The adolescent population has little or no claim to a space of its own, free from the

supervision of parents, teachers or employers. Concerning public space, teenagers are confronted


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with a setting that has been constructed as adult, and in which they have been constructed as either

'in trouble,' or 'causing trouble.' These stereotypes are also present in the quasi-public space of the

shopping mall and adolescents must find ways of making do and negotiating so as to interject their

own uses for the mall.

Hanging out at the mall is one of the quintessential activities of urban adolescent life, itself

composed of a variety of activities. Working from data gathered in interviews with senior high

school students regarding their use of shopping malls, this paper explores some of the tactical

means by which adolescents consume the mall space: their "art of living in the other's field."1

Shopping Malls as Quasi-Public Space

An analysis of everyday life is ill-fated if it does not take into account the setting in which

social activity takes place. Like the actors, the sociologist must recognize not only the obstacles

and constraints, but also the opportunities and resources presented by and through the built

environment. With this in mind, it is crucial to grasp the fact that, as a privately owned space, the

shopping mall is a problematic site for social life.

Private ownership allows those parties with a vested interest in the commercial success of

the mall--including the owners, managers, merchants--the right (and economic imperative) to tailor

the environment to promote the consumptive agenda of the mall. This requires that the mall

present itself as a desirable location for shopping--making it an object of consumption--while

utilizing exclusionary strategies that seek to filter out influences that distract or detract from the

imperative to purchase. These strategies include discouragement or outright barring of such

influences as loud or disorderly behavior, canvassers, and non-consumers, through the use of

security guards, surveillance and policies on loitering.


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While benches throughout the mall and tables in the food court allow for temporary breaks

in movement, prolonged stationary activity, framed as loitering, is discouraged. For teenagers,

loitering is a particularly pertinent issue; spending long periods of time in the food court is virtually

synonymous with the activity of hanging out. Typically, mall food courts have signs asking

patrons to limit their stay in the food court to half an hour or so. Signs are reinforced--or replaced--

with circulating security guards whose job it is to ensure that the circulation of the crowd,

necessary for the circulation of commodities, is maintained.

From personal experience, or that of friends, adolescents are well versed in the politics of

loitering. Not only is a time limit placed upon a stay in the food court, but so is an expectation of

consumption. In effect, there is a charge levied on tables: one must make a minimum purchase

(coffee is a popular choice) in order to legitimate one's use of the table. Adolescents recognize that

the mall is a place of business and often acknowledge that this form of "rent" is a reasonable

expectation. However, acknowledging rules and obeying them are two very different matters.

F: It's totally understandable. They [food court merchants] are there to make a business. Ifeveryone came and didn't do anything...just came to hang out...like, it's totally

understandable. Like, I don't question it if a security guard comes and yells at us fornobody having anything. Not only is that part of their job, but that's how it is. (female, 18)

This is far from a complete exposition on the strategies employed by the controlling parties

of the mall, but it does suggests the extent to which the commercial agenda of the mall pervades the

physical setting and the mental frameworks imposed upon the individuals within it. People are

regarded as consumers, first and foremost; those who cannot comply, either now or in the future,

tend to find themselves unwelcome in a space that purports to be social.

Recognition of the obstacles facing individuals who seek to make non-commercial use of

the mall space should not lead to arguments for architectural determinism. To suggest that social

interaction within the mall is completely subverted to and scripted by the commercial agenda is to


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grossly underestimate the creative agency of individuals. Policies can be negotiated, rules can be

rewritten, and capture can be avoided, if only on a temporary basis.

F: Actually, that's why you develop a friendship with the security guards. Then they won'tkick you out afterwards. Then they're just, like, "Yeah, whatever," and they have a lot more

important things to worry about. (female, 18)

[on having to buy something in the food court]F: But you can't do anything about it. So, you get empty cups and sit at a table. One time,

me and A. sat at a table and there were three empty cups so we put one in front of each of usand sat there. (female, 18)

Before going on to the creative tactics employed by adolescents in using the mall space,

there remains for discussion the obstacle particular to that population: the stereotype of teenagers as

dangerous. Gill Valentine, in her article on the social construction of public space, argues that

through the repetitive acts of parents, media and educators, public space has been "produced within

a regulatory framework as an adult space to such an extent that [it] is assumed to be "naturally" or

is taken for granted as the realm of grown-ups."2 Valentine points to the representations of stranger

danger, young children as endangered, teenagers as transgressive, and the demonization of the male

body as instrumental in the process whereby public space becomes the realm of adults, prompting

teenagers to find means of circumventing the order imposed on them.

Teenagers, upon entering the mall, confront both the consumptive agenda and the

stereotypes imposed on them with an acute sense of awareness. Even if accompanied by other

signs of respectability--nice clothes, polite behavior--a young appearance automatically qualifies

the individual as a possible problem, a cause for suspicion. Knowing that they are being regarded as

a "type" and not as an individual, many voiced the opinion that the adult population underestimates

their intelligence and presumes a lack of common sense.


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F: Oh, it's just that big ageism deal. Like, you walk into a place, and they stick you at theend of the line, they take people ahead of you, you know. It's a hassle. Like, I guess I

notice it a bit more just being female, a minority and young. Like, it's pretty screwed(laughs). (female, 17)

F: As soon as you stick a kid in jeans, their whole manner changes. ...In jeans, it's more of arelaxed state. And relaxed means we're going to use our language, we're going to, youknow, do our things the way we do them. And as soon as we start doing that, you know,

there's that gap between adult and teenager. And they don't understand us and we don'tunderstand them. Suspicion arises. (female, 17)

M: When I go to those other malls, nobody know me. I feel like I need to tape money to my

forehead so they'll serve me. (male, 18)

As well, being in a group larger than two or three was often deemed undesirable by the

teens themselves--particularly by women--as it increased the likelihood that their own individuality

would be overlooked, and replaced with the stereotype of teens as immature, rude or dangerous.

JS: How do you want to be regarded?F: Just as an individual. But it doesn't matter who you are. If you're in a circle of people, a

circle of friends, you're automatically going to be stereotyped. They'll look at one personthen go, "They're all like that." Except for, like, I guess the way we dress. I just look

different. I'm like the freak of my friends. (female, 18)

While the stereotype may be warranted in individual cases such as loud, boisterous

individuals, or shoplifters, the blanket application of suspicion is troubling to many teens who find

it undeserved and unjust. It also leads to a selective application of mall policies; security guards

tend to more stringent with adolescents and more lenient with elderly individuals, who make up

another large portion of the mall population.

F: I was kicked out of ____ Mall when I was younger, like 13 or something. There was,like, 8 of us. We didn't buy anything and we were just sitting there. We weren't bugging no

one, we were just sitting there doing nothing and they [security guards] kicked us all out. Iguess they don't want us loitering. And the thing is (in a hushed voice) more old people

loiter than we do. Like, we buy more stuff than a lot of them. They come in with theircrosswords and they just sit there and do them all day. They don't...I mean, they just sit

there. I mean, we go to the mall to buy stuff, and we sit in the food court and we have tobuy something to sit in the food court. It's not as much now [that I'm older] but still,

sometimes, they will say, "Buy something." They won't actually kick you out, they'll just


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say, "Can you buy something?" If I was just sitting there with my mom, they won't saynothing. (female, 18)

JS: Was it OK with the security guards that you'd sit in the food court?

F: Umm, after they got to know us, yes. They got used to seeing us there. Because I

remember, once, a couple of my friends brought up the point that if you're kicking us out,then kick out those old men because they're there all day. At least we go to school. Butthey're there all day, and they play dominos and euchre in the mall. So if you're going to

kick us out, then you have to kick out the whole food court because that's all people go toand just sit. (female, 17)

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Given such unwelcoming treatment, one might wonder why adolescents do not look

elsewhere for a site for social life. Canadian winters have much to do with the limited choices for

gathering--effectively removing the options of parks and streets from early November to late April-

-as does the fact that teenagers do not have a space they can call their own, away from parents,

teachers and other supervising adults. Unlike in the case of adults, where the home serves as a

private space, adolescents often view the home as a supervised space.4 Parents retain the decision-

making powers when it comes to teens using the home as a social space. As well, the very

presence of a parent in the home, regardless of how accommodating he or she is to the teen's social

life, may remove all viability of the home as social space for the teenager. Thus, adolescents often

turn to public space--or the shopping mall's approximation thereof--as a setting in which to be

themselves and hang out with friends. Despite the presence of adults and security guards in the

mall, there remains a sense of freedom to act.

F: I hate being stereotyped as the, you know, the stupid mall girls. Like, the stupid jean

jackets hanging off their shoulders and, like, looking like they're on a teenage crisis hotline.You know what I mean? Like, I don't want....I look at those people and I'm, like, "Oh God,

I hope I was never like that." Or the guys chasing the girls around... It's like, "Come on!" Iknow the mall's the place to do it, you know, because other than the street....where you can

go and heckle people. And your parents aren't going to say, "Watch your language," or theteachers, "Go down to the office." (female, 18)

JS: If you're treated like that in the mall, why do you keep going back?


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F: Well, you're also treated like that at [coffee shops]. You're also treated like thateverywhere. And your parents don't want all these kids in the house, so you have to go

somewhere. (female, 18)

Tactical Consumption

Popular culture may be regarded as the varied methods employed by individuals seeking to

appropriate, rather than be appropriated by, the cultural forms that make up everyday life. As such,

the 'popular' consumption of the mall space involves tactical uses of commercial space in such a

way as to interject individual agendas and meanings. Michel de Certeau, in The Practice of

Everyday Life, writes:

Innumerable ways of playing and foiling the other's game (jouer/ de jouer le jeu de l'autre),that is, the space instituted by others, characterize the subtle, stubborn, resistant activity of

groups which, since they lack their own space, have to get along in a network of alreadyestablished forces and representations. People make do with what they have.

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Shopping malls, and public space more generally, are spaces "instituted by others." There is the

temptation when discussing public space to refer to an ideal type, often represented as the Greek

agora. While public space should, ideally, be open to one and all, the reality is that public space--

including the agora--is constructed through exclusions. These exclusions may be based on class,

race, gender or, as Valentine has discussed, on age. Public space is ambivalent space, constructed

through the tension between inclusion and exclusion;6shopping malls, albeit a quasi-public space,

are no less ambivalent, presenting a struggle between interaction and transaction. In this tension it

is possible to open up opportunities for a reinterpretation and re-use of the space.

Through tactical consumption, adolescents produce a social space for themselves within the

mall's consumptive agenda. Tactics, according to de Certeau, are used by those who lack a space of

their own. Tactical practitioners are mobile and nomadic, temporarily infiltrating the space of the


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other and seizing opportunities to assert their transient--and often transgressive--ownership of the

space. In this way, a tactical attack "opens up clearings.... It 'authorizes' the production of an area

of free play.... It makes places habitable."7 Strategies, on the other hand, are used by those with a

proper place of their own, imposing systems and constructing order.

Thus, we may examine the tactical means by which teenagers redefine the mall as their

hang out, subverting, playing with and negotiating the mall's strategic obstacles and limits so as to

create and take advantage of opportunities to introduce their own conception of the mall.

Hanging Out

M: The whole point of the mall is to go, hang out, look for shoes, meet girls. (male, 17)

Hanging out, like other everyday activities, is difficult for the practitioners to articulate.

While this presents certain difficulties for the ethnographer, it can also present some of the most

rewarding interview experiences, as when individuals begin to question their taken-for-granted

everyday routine.

Hanging out, as mentioned above, is virtually synonymous with spending large amounts of

time in the food court. Besides periodic walks through the mall, window shopping and perhaps

purchasing, teenagers are thus spending the majority of their time circumnavigating the policy on

loitering.

F: How do you define hanging out? You sit there, and you're not specifically doinganything. But you can't, like, well I guess my definition of hanging out is not...it's, like,

staying stationary, know what I mean? You're hanging out. (female, 18)

JS: What is there to do in the mall?F: Like, wander, look at stuff, buy stuff. (female, 18)

F: Most of the time, it's just, like, sit there and talk. Go to the arcade. (female, 17)

M: Most often, I just go to hang out.

F: Well, he shops periodically throughout his hanging out.


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M: Yeah. We'll go window shopping. Like, we used to get bored and we used to cruise themall. You know, we'd go, we'd look and see what we wanted. (female 18, male 18)

Often the mall is associated with the first place that teenagers were allowed to go outside of

their immediate neighborhood. Many mentioned that their parents perceived the mall as a safe

place for children to go without supervision because of the presence of other adults and security

guards. But because these adults are not expressly in charge, the teenagers regard the mall as their

first 'taste of freedom.'

F: Before grade 9, we mostly hung out at friends' houses.

JS: So in grade 9, you got your freedom?F: It's like, "Yeah, fourteen! I can walk by myself!" (laughs)

JS: And where did you walk to?F: The mall! (laughs) (female, 18)

JS: You've been going to the mall since you were thirteen?

F: Yeah. 'Cause you couldn't drive, so you couldn't really go anywhere unless there wassomething specific going on. And if there wasn't, then you didn't really have anything to

do. So we'd go to the mall, but we wouldn't shop or anything. We didn't really evenwander. We'd just sit down (laughs). Talk to people. (female, 18)

With no obvious space to call their own, teenagers adopt the mall as a common meeting

ground. Not yet at the age at which bars are an option for a social gathering, and often feeling too

old to hang out at home, adolescents find a middle ground in the mall, sharing it with the

community at large. The crowd serves as audience, educator and backdrop, bringing adult and

teenage activities into the same location without requiring the latter to wholly defer to the former.

F: I think it's just regarded as a meeting ground. It's a place that's...it's common to all of us.

We all share it. Anybody can go. You might not be welcome there once you enter, butanybody can go. I think the fact that we all share it, we all use it in whatever way is suitable

to your needs... (female, 17)

F: Yeah, you can come here, it doesn't matter how old you are. And it's, like, it's prettymuch the same thing [as going to a club] because you can...but you're not dancing...but

you're still talking and you're seeing all the same people you would see at a dance club.(female, 18)

JS: What is the mall?


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F1: We just talk about them. You talk about them for, like, 2 minutes, and then it's, like,"OK, next conversation!" Like, it doesn't even last that long. (female 18, female 18)

F: Sometimes [the crowd is] good. Sometimes you get people doing stupid things and you

can laugh at them (laughing). One time I was at ____ Mall, and this guy was fighting with

the garbage can. (laughing) It was funny. (female, 18)

F: Actually, I've gotten in the habit (laughing) of listening to people's conversations. It's

kind of rude, but... Actually, I was on my break the other day, and I was sitting in the foodcourt having a smoke by myself. And I finished my smoke, but these three guys beside me

are telling this joke, so I sat there, to wait and listen to the rest of the joke. (female, 18)

F: Yeah, we are terrible for this [people watching]. We're the type of people, we will justlook at a person and we will just infer everything. We'll make up a name for them, we'll

discuss what kind of music they listen to, what kind of family they have, if they have kids ornot. Like, where they would go, what bar they would go to. We're just terrible for that. We

have nothing else to do so we just make it up. (female, 18)

F: I can always look out and spot at least three of his friends [in the food court].M: It's a smoking area...

F: And it gives you one of the best looks at the mall.M: Yeah, you can see everyone that's coming towards you. Or coming in the mall.

F: He likes to scope it out, see who he knows.M: Well, yeah, and everyone knows where I am, and I can see where everyone else is.

That's basically what it is. I can see who I want to talk to and who I'm going to go plan tosit with, or say hi to, or whatever. (female 18, male 18)

Sitting in the food court and talking are often associated with drinking, eating and smoking.

Because the remainder of the mall space is a no-smoking environment, smoking a cigarette, like

having a coffee, legitimates the use of the table. While this may be a tactical maneuver to extend

the length of stay in the food court before being asked to move on, one must consider the

consequences. When being loud and rude, adolescents are aware that they face the possibility of

being kicked out of the mall. Unlike a month's suspension from the mall, however, smoking has

the possibility of longer term repercussions. The mall may not cause smoking, but it may have

other effects:

F: It's funny. I just got off the phone with my friend, and I said, "Well, do you want to meet

me at the mall?" because she was supposed to get her hair done. She said, "The mall causescancer." And I go, "What are you talking about?" She goes, "I just came to that


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realization." She was sitting there, and there's nothing to do but smoke, and she says, "Themall causes cancer." (female, 18)

Joining in the social campaign to rid communal spaces of smoking, a number of shopping

malls in Canada have instituted no-smoking policies in their food courts, removing the last vestige

of smokers from the mall.

JS: What if they made the food court non-smoking?

F: (laughing) Then I'd be pissed off. I'd probably more do the mall [shop] and leave.(female, 18)

JS: What would happen if the mall became non-smoking?

M: A lot of people would stop hanging out here.F: They'd die.

M: I wouldn't come. I smoke around 12 or 13 cigarettes. You sit there, you're talking tosomeone, you have a cigarette. Fifteen minutes later, you're still there, and you're like,

"OK." [pretends to light another]F: "I'm bored now! I need another smoke!" (laughing)

M: I think smoking plays a major part in it.F: Yeah, it does.

M: It does. Even my friends that don't smoke hang out in the smoking area because that'swhere everybody is. (female, 18, male, 18)

The mall is not an ideal location for social life. Besides the obviously troubling health issue

of smoking is the impact of the commercial agenda. Adolescents, like the rest of us, are not

continuously on-guard against the strategies imposed on the social world. Tactical resistance may

be conscious, entertaining, and productive; but it may also be unconscious, limiting its effects to a

highly personal level that the individual him/herself may not even be aware. Tactical consumption

is also not a full-time endeavor; individuals are co-opted even as they resist. The very use of the

mall reaffirms its existence and contributes to its reproduction, regardless of what tactical uses go

on within.

The contemporary shopping mall is a site of accelerated consumption, relying on the mass

circulation of consumers and commodities. Such a site is apprehended in transit, and is geared to

the distracted eye. Contemplative appreciation of the mall is too time-consuming--one must stop--


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and too transgressive to be expected of everyone, at all times. Thus it is of little wonder the extent

to which adolescents have 'bought in' to the material myth of social life.

JS: What do you do if you're staying at the mall?

F: I'm, like, the biggest shopaholic, OK? (laughs) We usually come...and do the round:Bootlegger, Smart Set, Le Chateau, Eaton's [Canadian clothing stores].JS: Is that your normal route through the mall?

F: Yes. You can ask anybody. "What's the route that S. does, " and they'll tell you, "Oh,Bootlegger, Smart Set, Le Chateau, Eaton's." And that's my week. Then I bring my mom

on Saturday and buy everything I saw during the week.JS: How often do you buy something during the week?

F: Have I ever gone to the mall and not bought something? No. (laughs) (female, 18)

As a change from sitting in the food court, many teenagers cited shopping as a social

activity, something done with friends or alone. Like conversational tactics, shopping can also be a

means of avoiding or postponing boredom, raising questions concerning the amount of pleasure

teenagers derive from the social world. The perceived pleasure taken from the mall begins to

resemble a delusion if pleasure is simply equated with the absence of displeasure.

The predominance of shopping as a social activity tied to hanging out differs, not

surprisingly, along gender lines.

F: The mall's the place where you go, and you shop, and you meet people, and you shop.The basic thing is shopping.

M: It's a place to go. It's a place to do something. Anything. You can go there, and youcan sit there and because you're sitting at the mall and there's people there, you're less bored

than if you were sitting at home doing nothing.JS: Is it ever more than just a matter of reducing boredom?

M: Yeah sometimes. I mean, we go there and we make complete asses out of ourselves. Imean, that's fun. The mall is a place to go. To me, shopping is a secondary thing. First of

all, it's a hang out. (female 18, male 18)

F: Shopping's a social thing when I bring all my friends to see all the clothes I want, type ofthing. Or when we all try on clothes, or we go to the jeweler's and try on rings, and do all

those stupid kind of chick things. (laughs) (female, 18)

There are creative uses of space present in personally-structured routes through the mall,

and the construction of shopping as a pleasurable, social activity may point to a tactical


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reinterpretation of the mall's message of consumption. However, the emphasis placed on spending

money and material goods points to one of the serious hazards of using the mall as a social world.

Teenagers require a space in which a measure of freedom allows them to experiment with who they

are and with being an adult. For adults, the mall is by and large a place of consumerism.8 If the

woman below is any indication, teenagers are learning far too well how to fit into the adult world of

materialism.

JS: What's the enjoyment in shopping for you?F: I could buy this shirt and tomorrow I'll go to school wearing it and everybody'll be, like,

"Oh, I love that shirt," and I'll be, like, "Yeah, I just bought it last night." Then I feel good,because they like the shirt that I bought. I'll go to Eaton's...I love Eaton's, it's my favorite

store...and I'll go upstairs and they have all these ceramic angels and stuff. So I'll buy oneand I'll put it in my room and then everyone will be, like, "Oh, that looks really nice. I want

to buy one too." So then, it's like self-gratification. I got this, and everybody'll like it. Iknow it's sort of selfish and conceited, but it's, like, I like to buy things, to have that... You

know, if you came to school in the same clothes you've been wearing since grade 9, theneveryone will be, like (feigns look of disapproval)

JS: Are there other ways of getting that kind of response from people?F: Probably... Well, like buying other people things. I'm big for that too. I also buy

everybody...like, I'll see something, and I'll be like, "Oh, V. will like that, " and I'll buy it.And you give it to them and they're, like, "Oh, you're so nice!" I love that! (laughs)

(female, 18)

Many adolescents cited a lack of disposable income as one major reason why shopping was,

far from enjoyable, a rather depressing activity. Many of these same teens made comments about

the materialism of their peers. One responded:

F: Everybody has their own way of pampering themselves, whether it's taking a bath, orbuying stuff. So if someone wants to buy stuff to make themselves feel better, then what's

the difference from having a bath? Like, what's the difference? It still makes you feelgood. (female, 18)

Concluding Remarks

Shopping malls, as imperfect a setting as they may be, are a necessary space. More than

fulfilling some commercial need, malls provide a sense of safety and social atmosphere to a large

portion of the population. They also provide a very necessary arena in which adolescents are


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allowed some measure of freedom. Under the cover of the crowd, teenagers may experiment with

their burgeoning social selves in the process of learning to be an adult, while creating a sense of

belonging and independence with their friends. Simultaneously obeying and subverting the rules,

buying into the commodities while loitering in the food court, the experience of teenagers seems as

ambivalent as the space itself.

Shopping malls are not public space, and should not be taken as a model for a new form of

public space, should one ever be realized. However, they should also not be blamed for the state of

contemporary public life. Malls are a symptom and not the cause of the increasing interiorization--

and sterilization--of social life. They draw on our desire for public space amidst an increasing

dearth of such spaces; as such, malls do contain possibilities for introducing public uses, presenting

the potential for genuine public interaction, albeit within a quasi-public setting. This potential is

essential to the vitality of a society's culture and must be preserved and augmented. The success of

adolescents to do just that speaks to the perseverance of everyday practices and popular culture.

The failings on the part of the adolescents, and, more broadly, on the part of all consumers, to resist

the seductive allure of a materialist version of happiness speaks to the unrelenting character of the

capitalist spirit.


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Notes

1 Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. S. Rendall. (Berkeley: University of

California Press, 1984), 24.2 Gill Valentine, "Children Should Be Seen and Not Heard: The Production and Transgression of

Adult's Public Space," Urban Geography 17:3 (1996): 216.3 The tactics by which the elderly population consumes the mall space would be an excellent focusfor future research.4 see Mats Lieberg, "Teenagers and Public Space," Communication Research 22:6 (December

1995): 720-744.5 de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, 18.

6 see Jon Goss, "Disquiet on the Waterfront: Reflections on Nostalgia and Utopia in the Urban

Archetypes of Festival Marketplaces," Urban Geography 17:3 (1996): 221-247.7 de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, 106.

8 In speaking generally of adults, I am not referring to those who have retired and, like teenagers,

make far more social, non-consumerist use of the mall.

References

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hanging out at the mall instances of tactical consumption in the adolescent social world

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