The Spatial Dialectics of Modernity and Retail Affect at Abasto Shopping, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Abstract

The paper is about the political life of a building: the Abasto. Located in what was called the “most porteño” neighborhood in the first part of the 20th century (“porteño” is someone from central Buenos Aires) when it functioned as the city's main food market, the Abasto became a massive shopping mall in 1998 amid rapid neoliberal restructuring. This paper charts the political life of this building in two steps. First, by drawing on theories of socio-spatial dialectics, this paper charts the history of the Abasto as an urban object in a wider political landscape of porteño modernity. Second, by incorporating recent theories of affect and presenting findings from field work carried out at the mall in 2010 and 2011, this paper develops a framework for understanding the politics of consumption in a “post-neoliberal” urban landscape.

Keywords:

• Argentina
• shopping malls
• architecture
• neoliberalism
• dialectics
• affect

Acknowledgements

I thank everyone who participated in the project and the Abasto Shopping management for their cooperation. I thank the following people for their inspiration and support: J. P. Jones III, Sallie Marston, Sarah Moore, Liz Oglesby, Ajay Skaria, Ian Shaw, Anne Ranek, Jeff Garmany, Georgia Conover, Suncèana Laketa, Mari Galup, Valente Soto, Majed Akhter, Gigi Owen, Daniel Kozak, Yaseen Noorani, Pamela Alfonso, Manuel Prieto, Jessica de la Ossa, Richard Shearmur, and the anonymous reviewers. Finally, I thank the Tinker Foundation, the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Arizona, and the Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Institute at the University of Arizona for supporting this research.

Notes

² See Turley and Milliman, (2000) for a remarkable review of the business literature; also see work by retail expert Underhill (2004) and Benjamin's (1999) early contribution, of course.

³ See Allen (2006), Anderson and Harrison (2010), Anderson (2011), and Best (2011).

⁴ I translated all text originally in Spanish. This may differ from the authors’ own translation in the case it is available.

⁵ For comparative insights on the global transformation of urban commercial spaces in China, see Wu (2011).

⁶ The original line is “turistas en vez de ilegales vernáculos.” Vernáculo here refers to the locals living illegally in the ‘casas tomadas’ before the arrival of the mall.

⁷ Interview by author, June 20, 2011.

⁹ She likely meant “cover my eyes,” not “bat” them. At her request, this interview was conducted in English, even though Spanish was her first language and English mine.

¹⁰ Interview by author, June 24, 2010.

⁸ Interview by author, June 24, 2010.

¹¹ Interview by author, July 21, 2010.