Imagining Thailand in European Hypermarkets: New Class-Based Consumption in Chiang Mai's ‘Cruise Ships’

Abstract

In the 1990s, consumption space in Chiang Mai was transformed by the arrival of Bangkok-based department and supermarket chain stores. After the 1997 economic crisis, the number of supermarkets and hypermarkets multiplied rapidly when many Thai supermarket chains were bought out by European-based grocery transnational corporations. The present paper examines how European hypermarkets in Chiang Mai have integrated themselves into national and local consumption modernities, culinary narratives and spiritualities. It also considers how Chiang Mai consumers use hypermarket spaces to create new identities around discourses concerning class and consumer freedom.

Keywords:

• Supermarkets
• Food
• Middle Class
• Modernity
• Chiang Mai
• Thailand

Notes

1. The author thanks and acknowledges Bongkot Theppiman for her interpretation work in collecting the ethnographic data that forms the basis of this paper. The vast majority of interviews collected for this project were conducted in Thai, a language that the author cannot speak fluently. Ethical clearance for this project was granted by the University of Sydney.

2. Some relationships with interviewees were built over time but, of the 110 people interviewed, most were met only once. More women were interviewed, but one-quarter of the interviewees were men. The interviewees came from a variety of social and vocational backgrounds, including food vendors, mechanics, farm and agricultural workers, students, retail workers and professionals in business, advertising, banking, research and education. Others were retired, did not work or did not define themselves by any occupation (such as some wealthy women who relied on their husbands for income).