Agencing practices: a historical exploration of shopping bags

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to explore the dynamic process of agencing through a practice-based historical analysis of shopping bags. This paper draws upon practice-based studies regarding consumption and markets and is based on an archive study of a Swedish packaging magazine from 1935 to 2013. The paper analyses the transformation of shopping bags from their introduction in shopping to the current situation of them being taken for granted, but at the same time, contested. The paper shows how shopping bags over time have been included in and contributed to the shaping of different practices and have been, in turn, transformed by these practices. The case of shopping bags suggests that agencing is a process in which capacity to act is acquired by continuous arranging of elements in different practices, as well as adjustments of these elements in relation to each other.

Keywords:

• actor-network theory
• practice theory
• retailing
• shopping

Acknowledgements

An early version of the paper was presented at the European Science Foundation Exploratory Workshop “Agencing Markets” in Corsica, France, in September 2013. Constructive comments and suggestions from workshop participants, special issue editors, two anonymous reviewers, and Hans Kjellberg aided revisions and are gratefully acknowledged.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. But see, for example, Gregson, Crewe, and Brooks 2002; Fuentes (2014b).

2. In the practice-based literature, there are differences in how objects are considered in relation to practice (see, e.g. Fuentes 2014a). For example, while Schatzki (2010) separates the material arrangement from practice (in order to explore their relationship and how these are tied as nexuses), other practice-based scholars (e.g. Reckwitz 2002; Shove, Pantzar, and Watson 2012) treat the material arrangement as part of the practice (although analytical separations can be made).

3. For more about the changes in the stores, see, for example, du Gay (2004), Cochoy (2009), or Kjellberg and Helgesson (2007b) and particularly how it affected consumer logistics, see Hagberg and Normark (forthcoming).

Additional information

Funding

This paper was produced as part of the research project “Consumer Logistics” funded by The Swedish Research Council Formas [grant number 2010–155].