“Mobility-things” and consumption: conceptualizing differently mobile families on the move with recent purchases in urban space

Abstract

Contemporary consumption generates mobility and even though recent understandings of consumption have moved beyond moments of purchase, it has also become complicated to discuss spatiality and mobility.¹ Researchers have started to emphasize the mobilities that undergird consumer behavior and the way that virtual mobility help shape consumer practices has also been explored. But some aspects of mobility constitutive of consumption are less articulated. Focuses on the experiences of bringing items back home from the store are rare in the studies of consumption. The aim of this article is to present an understanding of differently mobile consumers on the move with recent purchases as it is negotiated in the performance of a variety of material objects or “mobility-things.” Mobility-things are co-constitutive of moving consumers in urban space and people often extend their body range, carrying capacities and ability to move across distance through enrolling devices. But they also use them for planning the route of consumption and calculating volume of goods to purchase. The results of this study point toward the important role of mobility-things in consumption and add a hitherto neglected supplement to our understanding of mundane consumer culture.

Keywords:

• consumers
• consumption
• actor-network theory
• mobility
• body
• Latour
• Cochoy
• shopping

Funding

This research was supported by the research council FORMAS [250-2010-155].

Notes

1. This work is part of the URBAN-NET research project Consumer Logistics (http://www.cfk.gu.se/english/research/consumer-logistics/).

2. The concluding part of this article relies heavily on the generous and creative comments of anonymous reviewers. They helped me elaborate on my results as well as developing the distinct contribution of the perspective applied in the article.