Gap on the Map? Towards a Geography of Consumption and Identity

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Abstract
The current blurring of the boundaries between economic, cultural, and social geography has placed issues of consumption and identity firmly on the research agenda. In this paper, we address the question of the spatiality of retailing and consumption and argue that emergent microgeographies of consumption are challenging the simplicity of the globalisation thesis. We argue that retailers are in the business of creating particular urban landscapes and that qualitative differences are emerging between areas as consumption centres. By focusing on the spatial outcomes of the complex mediation between retailers, advertisers, and consumers, we examine the complex political-economic relations which enable the production of consumption. The project is thus an attempt to mesh production-oriented and culturally derived understandings of consumption and identity.