A city, a mall, an experience: shopping Iguatemi Ribeirão Preto and relationships with real and simulated urban space

Abstract

This proposal is linked to the Thematic Project FAPESP "Contemporary economic logics: medium cities and consumption", in which spatial practices and economic logic linked to the consumption and space are taken as opportunities to make the reading of urban and cities transformations in six medium cities: Marilia, Presidente Prudente, São Carlos, São José do Rio Preto, Ribeirão Preto and Londrina. Its specific focus is on the Shopping Iguatemi Ribeirão Preto - SP, valuing the particular opportunity provided by the observation of the trajectory of a mall since its opening, besides enabling the analysis of discourses and images in which the advertising campaign that prepared the inauguration was based, as relations between the shopping mall designed and effectively practiced. We intend to attempt especially for spatial practices of its members, how they interrelated or distinguished public and private spaces, how they relate to the socio-spatial diversity present in these spaces and how they deal with the forms of social control of this mall. We will also evaluate the role that the Iguatemi Ribeirão Preto represent in current production processes of urban space, especially in the processes of socio-spatial segregation and fragmentation. To this end, we pretend to realize daily observations of practices of their users (consumers, workers and merchants), on different days and times, as well as conduct interviews with users previously identified as representative of the mall. With this, we hope to bring a contribution to reflection on the relationship between space, time, social control and consumption, and their joints or not with the wider spaces of the city. (AU)