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Christian Fuentes.

Christian Fuentes

Professor

Christian Fuentes.

Unpacking package free shopping: Alternative retailing and the reinvention of the practice of shopping

Author

  • Christian Fuentes
  • Petronella Enarsson
  • Love Kristoffersson

Summary, in English

The aim of this paper is to understand how the practice of package free shopping takes shape and is established. Taking a shopping-as-practice approach, and drawing on an ethnographic study of a Swedish ecological food store, this paper shows that to be able to successfully remove a key artefact - packaging - from the practice of shopping, the practice itself must be reinvented. Developing package free shopping therefore requires the re-framing of the practice of shopping (making it meaningful in a new way), the re-skilling of the consumer (developing new competencies needed for its performance), and the re-materialization of the store (changing the material arrangement that makes this mode of shopping possible). This suggests that the promotion of alternative modes of sustainable shopping is a complicated matter that requires a profound understanding of the practice of shopping.

Department/s

  • Department of Service Studies

Publishing year

2019-05-28

Language

English

Pages

258-265

Publication/Series

Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services

Volume

50

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Elsevier

Topic

  • Business Administration
  • Social Sciences Interdisciplinary

Status

Published

Project

  • Alternative Food Markets: Promoting new modes of food provisioning and consumption

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0969-6989