City & Society: El Mall: The Spatial and Class Politics of Shopping Malls in Latin America. Arlene Dávila, Oakland, CA

City & Society
Book Review
El Mall: The Spatial and Class totalizing and globalizing ‘postmodern’

Politics of Shopping Malls in Latin culture” (p. 2). Dávila demonstrates how
America. Arlene Dávila, Oakland, CA: malls in Bogatá, Columbia are not mere
University of California Press, 2016, 248 products of globalization but rather
pp. serve as spaces where (class-stratified)
acts of shopping, dining, family outings,
Elizabeth Eklund flash mobs, and certain types of protest
University of Arizona are performed. Acceptable activities are
sorted by class with certain malls
Malls are iconic and often the locus of targeting “higher” or “lower” middle-
narratives about globalizing consumer class patrons based on the use and
culture, but as Arlene Dávila shows, the arrangement of the physical space.
role of the mall is not so simple. By Readers might be interested in how she
taking a multifaceted ethnographic pairs processes of transnationalism and
approach, Dávila looks at how the mall neo-colonial models of globalization
shapes, is shaped by, and is in dialogue with Bourdieu’s (1984) ideas of social
with the cultural construction and capital. Her examples demonstrate a
performance of class. The Latin performance theory lens (after Turner
American mall is not simply the North 1969, Sahlins 1981, Butler 1988) as
American/European shopping space but “middle class” codes of how to dress
rather a new transnational institution and how to act, are learned, practiced,
that carries the burden of representing performed, and reproduced.
global trends and fast fashion while While most of the book centers on
serving as a space where people must the construction and performance of
perform their purchasing power to gain class in Bogotá, the first two chapters
entrance, reproducing nationalized look at the physical space and
narratives of class. management of the mall in the context
Dávila’s approach is surprising of international assumptions. In Chapter
because her examples demonstrate One, Dávila engages the question of
performance theory and how the mall how, at a fundamental level, malls are
becomes a performance space. This “built” (both financed for construction
book draws its strength from contesting and then managed) differently in most of
the way “we tend to dismiss shopping Latin America in comparison to North
malls as homogenous and derivative of America. Most North American malls
the United States . . . producing a have a single property owner and are
© 2018 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/ciso.12161
Book Review
managed by real estate investment trusts consumption. The formal mall jobs may
(REITs), with storefronts being leased to boost tax revenue, but the jobs are
tenants. In contrast, a historic lack of harder and pay less. One mall employee
capital to finance construction resulted Dávila spoke with “admitted that she
in some Latin American malls having could be making more money selling
multiple owners, analogous to condos arepas (cornmeal bread) in the street”
with private ownership of storefronts. (p. 88). Urban spatial separation of class
Despite fundamental differences in how is reinforced with more affluent malls in
malls are physically built and owned, north Bogotá and poorer malls in the
Dávila demonstrates in Chapter Two south. This north/south urban divide is
that the mall is entangled in a well known to the people Dávila
homogenizing international discourse interviewed, as the upwardly mobile
that assumes the North American clearly state that they see no need to
ownership model. As part of her shop in the southern malls. Northern
research, Dávila was a participant malls favor shopping as a primary use
observer in the International Council of and tend to have more expensive,
Shopping Centers (ICSC) John T. international chains. In contrast, poorer,
Riordan Global Professional southern malls provide more non-
Development School in Mexico City. shopping activities, like eating in the
Latin American mall professionals attend food courts or attending “free” public
these meetings to learn the “language of events.
retail” (p. 45) so they can “be certified as The space of the mall further
global shopping mall professionals” reproduces subtler forms of bias based
(p. 63). This language centers on best on appearance, demonstrated by what
practices regarding management of people wear. There is a bias against
common areas, tenant mix, and levantados, or the newly rich, who stand in
maximizing the number of visitors. contrast to people who have been raised
These homogenizing global in their socioeconomic class. Part of that
discourses at the professional level concern is tied to the complexities of the
contrast with the portrait of the mall that drug trade. But concerns about
Davila illustrates throughout her book. appearance are also entangled in racial
Dávila’s work focuses on how the bias against Afro-Columbians and
transnational mall space shapes and Indigenous peoples who tend to be from
reflects localized constructions of class, the coastal areas. Overt racial categories
particularly the emergent middle class. are reproduced, but are embedded in
For example, the mall creates tensions class codes. Race tends to be fixed in
between mall “jobs” that sell hegemonic cultural preferences that
international goods and the informal conflate racial traits and ethnic practices
economy located outside the secured with class, exemplified by how
mall. International brands and products “straightened and blow-dried” hair is
strain historic links between the national part of the middle class/professional
production of goods and their local look (p. 128). Negatively viewed
City & Society
subcultures (which may be blended) are Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction: A

distinguished by the way they dress, in Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste.
particular ńero (well-worn clothes Translated by Richard Nice. Cambridge.
associated with the lower urban classes), MA: Harvard University Press.
traqueto (ostentatious dress associated
with narco-traffickers), and clashing Butler, Judith. 1988. “Performative Acts
colorful clothes (associated with coastal and Gender Constitution: An Essay in
ethnic groups and racial stereotypes). Phenomenology and Feminist Theory.”
The way people dress when they go to Theatre Journal, 40 (4), 519–31.
the mall also becomes a performance of
spending power, as shoppers assemble Sahlins, Marshal. 1981. Historical
appropriate outfits to shop in as “‘proof’ Metaphors and Mythical Realities: Structure in
of purchasing power” (p. 139). El Mall the Early History of the Sandwich Islands.
speaks to processes of making a middle Ann Arbor: University Michigan Press.
class, since malls target a higher
socioeconomic class than the social Turner, Victor. 1969. The Ritual Process:
strata that shops there. The mall thus Structure and Anti-Structure. Chicago:
functions as a key space for performing Aldine.
and learning class codes.
The book works as a whole text, but
it also revisits important insights that
facilitate extracting useful chapters.
Nearly every chapter could be pulled
from the book and used in a variety of
classes ranging from economic
anthropology to globalization,
international studies, or science and
technology studies. While Dávila
effectively wields theory and
appropriately applies it to concrete
examples, the theory is unpacked and
accessible, allowing chapters to be easily
understood by undergraduates whilst
containing enough nuance to use in
focused graduate seminars.
Keywords: Latin America; Malls;

Performance; Class
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City & Society

El Mall: The Spatial and Class totalizing and globalizing ‘postmodern’

subcultures (which may be blended) are Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction: A

Keywords: Latin America; Malls;

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