نوآوری دوباره در عمل خرید
Abstract
1. Introduction
2. Shopping practice and its reconfiguration
3. An ethnographic study of package free shopping
4. Package free and the reinvention of the practice of shopping
5. Discussion and conclusions
Acknowledgements
References
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to understand how the practice of package free shopping takes shape and is established. Taking a shopping-as-practice approach, and drawing on an ethnographic study of a Swedish ecological food store, this paper shows that to be able to successfully remove a key artefact – packaging – from the practice of shopping, the practice itself must be reinvented. Developing package free shopping therefore requires the re-framing of the practice of shopping (making it meaningful in a new way), the re-skilling of the consumer (developing new competencies needed for its performance), and the re-materialization of the store (changing the material arrangement that makes this mode of shopping possible). This suggests that the promotion of alternative modes of sustainable shopping is a complicated matter that requires a profound understanding of the practice of shopping.
Introduction
Package free shopping is attracting attention as a new form of sustainable consumption (Rapp et al. 2017). Consumers are becoming increasingly concerned by the amount of waste generated by packaging and are seeking to address this issue (Lindh et al. 2015). Much of the critique of packages revolves around plastic, an ubiquitous material that has paved the way for multiple new food packages and food products, effectively reconfiguring everyday food practices (Hawkins, 2018). Against this backdrop, shopping at package free stores is seen by both consumers and retailers as a (plastic) waste reduction practice, a way of reducing the environmentally problematic materials that go into packaging (Zeiss, 2018). In this discourse, packages are framed as unsustainable objects that need to be reduced or completely removed. Similar to the case of the plastic shopping bag, efforts are being made to remove a previously important shopping tool in order to address the environmental problems it generates (Hagberg, 2016). Package free shopping is thus an example of an increasingly common pro-environmental behavioural change initiative focusing on removing unsustainable objects rather than “greening” existing products and objects. However, accomplishing this behavioural change is not uncomplicated. As studies have shown in the past, sustainable consumption, in general, and sustainable shopping, in particular, are difficult endeavours. Sustainable consumption does not automatically follow from environmental awareness or knowledge (Longo et al., Forthcoming). Like many other forms of sustainable consumption (e.g., Connolly and Prothero, 2008), package free shopping requires consumers to rethink their way of shopping, to acquire new competencies, to break old habits and to establish new ones, often forsaking some of the convenience that comes with normal shopping (Fuentes, 2014; Rapp et al. 2017; Venn et al. 2017).