The Anthropology of Shopping

Michael Donovan

Society for Applied Anthropology, Annual Meetings 2004

Tags: Design, Design Anthropology, Retail Ethnography, Semiotics, Shopping

“Good” shopping environments (brick and mortar, paper, or electronic) provide the cues, symbols, and well-crafted spaces that engage the cultural imagination. This paper takes examples from recent fieldwork in consumer anthropology to examine how retail myths can come to life.