Generic spaces and social appropriations in shopping centers: The case of Mall Plaza del Trébol in the Concepción metropolitan area, 1994-2012

Abstract

Academic, global and Latin American narratives present the shopping mall and its proliferation as part of an emerging and generic pseudo-city, elitist fortifications that are sociallyhomogeneous and privatize public space, sterile non-places in the production of sociability and the containment of that which is urban. However, there are also those who consider these sites to be places of opportunity, highlighting the existence of phenomena involving the transposition of social activities from the traditional city to these postmodern stages. This research presents and discusses the prevailing discourses using a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the first shopping mall built outside the capital, Mall Plaza del Trébol (1994), in Concepcion, Chile. It affirms that under the processes of appropriation and morphological-pragmatic transformation, new-style shopping centers are not always sterile in urban settings, and even that beyond the transposition processes identified, malls are acting as support spaces for the production of new sociability by communities with emerging and transpatial interests.