- 1 Planned initially as a book published by a commercial publisher in English, the project was transfo (...)
1This issue of the journal Belgeo brings together 12 articles written mainly by French-speaking authors working in the field of the geography of retailing and consumption1. The aim of this thematic issue is to facilitate the international permeability of French-speaking work in this subfield of research. Readers will find analyses of contextualised case studies as well as conceptual and theoretical texts.
2The geography of retailing and consumption in French-speaking countries has developed and been taken shape since the 1960s (Lemarchand, 2011; Lestrade, 2016). Through the diversity of its subjects and approaches, it has contributed to a better understanding of social and spatial changes in different settings. Analyses of retailing locations reflect the importance of commercial transactions in social and cultural relations. Initially examined from the perspective of urban development and planning, retail locations are now being studied in relation to a variety of situations, places, and spaces (including virtual ones), considering economic, social, and cultural factors. As part of the consumer circuit, some retailing venues are even becoming themselves objects of consumption and fascination! At the other end of the specter, the absence of retailing spaces in urban, suburban and rural areas is fueling reflections on social, cultural and economic exclusion (Laroche, 2018).
3As with all domains of research, the geography of retailing and consumption is based on theoretical models and is associated with important currents of thought in the social sciences. The analysis of retailing in French-speaking geography was initially urban and economic. Flows, transport and urban development have long defined its research horizons. Today it is as much social and cultural as it is economic. Thinking about the nature of retailing spaces feeds into more general questions about the “commodification” of society. The transformation of social and spatial patterns of practice brought about by globalisation is having an impact on the dynamics of shopping areas at every scale, from the local to the global. Whether we are talking about the development of e-commerce, new shopping centers or the transformation of popular shopping spaces, we are seeing a renewal of approaches linked to these dynamics. Research in this field now examines the issues of cultural variations, migration and gender, to name a few. This enrichment of the paradigms used reflects the debates at the heart of the scientific approach. These paradigms also evolve according to space, not only because the objects studied vary, but also because the research communities are in part structured geographically, and therefore, implicitly, by linguistic area (Ehlich, 2013).
4The articles gathered together here see the continuities and changes in the geography of retailing and consumption as initially approached by French-speaking authors. In addition to their theme and focus, each article includes an important bibliography, providing an overview of the contemporary geography of retailing and consumption. These twelve articles overlap and converge. Assuming a relative subjectivity in the assemblage, four groups can be identified.
5Three articles share a common desire to look at globalization and its effects in southern countries. Armelle Choplin and Olivier Pliez discuss the commodification of the world through the routes of the “inconspicuous geography of retail trade”. This inconspicuous geography is a major issue in terms of economic talk and movement; it takes a number of routes from China to Africa, linking the world’s second-largest economy with the countries of a continent rich in resources, with a growing middle class. A different kind of globalisation goes along with a geopolitical reconfiguration, such as the one driven by the BRICS. The articles by Malick Mboup and Si Dung Pham shed further light on these North-South relations by examining the transformations that gave rise to the expansion of world retailing. While the construction of new major retail outlets is now the subject of controversy in the North, it seems to be gaining real momentum in the South. This dynamism is asserting itself in central areas, and now in more and more peripheral neighborhoods. It is also calling into question street vending, which is more or less informal. Mboup demonstrates this in practical terms through the increasing opening of supermarkets and hypermarkets in Dakar under the banners of French groups, a situation that challenges the role of small independent retailing in the economic and social integration of a vulnerable section of the population, particularly women. Pham, for his part, observes informal retailing and how it is moving at Hanoi in Vietnam. As in Dakar, the public authorities would facilitate the opening of supermarkets and shopping centers, associated with globalization and a certain representation of modernity. Urban authorities wishing to modernize the image of the city seem to be trying to work towards the disappearance of retail and informal markets, which, in fact, remain the main places where people shop. Here again, this retailing, with its inherited traditional forms, is adapting, moving and using Hanoi’s specific urban morphology to hold its own by taking hold, as the author shows, in the city’s alleyways.
6The following four articles focus on the role of retailing and the changes it is undergoing, mainly in France. They first look at the figure of the shopping centre, the development of mass retailers and the emergence of a new type of retailer, the wine merchant. But the intent is to look at the place of retailing at the bottom of the urban fabric in small and medium-sized French towns.
7Catherine Maumi looks at the architect Victor Gruen and his vision of the new form of shopping center, a form that he already saw as a “place” offering more than just goods to be consumed in a suburb devoid of spaces for meeting and socializing. Not without relating to this phenomenon, René Paul Desse and Nathalie Lemarchand give a geohistorical overview of mass retailing in France. Adapting to retail planning regulations, a French specificity shared with a number of other European countries, mass retailers are above all attentive to movements linked to changes in consumer practices: the movement that is taking them to the periphery or, more recently, the movement that is bringing them back into the dense city. Arnaud Delamarre and Louis Dupont use the wine retailing sector to analyze the transformation of inner-city neighborhoods and of the shopping area, not forgetting the figure of the wine merchant himself. Following changes in the way wine is consumed, the authors look at how these new shops are helping to transform urban neighborhoods. Often accompanied by other food outlets, they give these places a commercial showcase, most notably, with a specific aesthetization of the venue. Lastly, Mihan Chaze and Iwan Le Clec’h use a journal review of work published since the 1970s to look at changes in the retail structure of small and medium-sized towns. They point out that the research carried out on these towns has sought to measure their changes in the same way as for towns of greater importance, but also that their centers have experienced the same phenomena of ex-urbanization accompanied by the growth of peripheral retailing.
8A third group of three texts addresses cultural and social themes such as gentrification, migration, the environment and the questions posed by the sustainable development discourse and practices.
9Antoine Fleury and Natacha Rollinde revisit the issue of gentrification. On the basis of Anglo-American literature, the authors point out the parallel production of work in France, which observes the commercial transformation of old urban districts in a context of gentrification. In so doing, they emphasize the approaches favored in each linguistic area. The article concludes with an analysis of an “emblematic” landscape of a gentrified commercial street. Marie Chabrol, Hadrien Dubucs and Lucine Endelstein set out to understand the link between international migration and urban retailing. Drawing on multidisciplinary research results, the authors point out the role played by migrant entrepreneurship in debates on ethnicity and urban diversity, and thus, the important role played by retailing in this context. Addressing the thematic of the environment, Philippe Dugot raises the question of the place of sustainability in commercial activities. In the face of globalization, environmental and ethical concerns are gaining ground, as is the value of the local. He points out that these values tend to be at odds with local production capacity and the satisfaction of ever greater consumer needs and desires generated by modernity and the marketing that accompanies it. Despite this contradiction, environmental issues and, more broadly, sustainable development are increasingly fueling the debate on consumer practices and spaces.
10Finally, the last two articles propose new avenues for research. Drawing on work published since the mid-1960s, Alessandro Araldi, Benjamin Wayens and Giovanni Fusco examine the link between urban morphology and commercial activity. They show that, as the link between retailing and the city was recognized on both sides, scientific production has followed suit. The authors point out that the geography of retailing focuses on the evolution of the spatial organization of retailing, while studies of urban morphology focus on the impact of physical form on socioeconomic positions. Studies combining these two approaches would provide an opportunity to better evaluate the effects of urban morphology on the commercial structure of the city. Indeed, the shape of a shopping area within a city helps to shape its landscape. But the commercial landscape is not just a question of architecture, it is also a question of creating an ambiance or an atmosphere, linked to the sensitive qualities of a place. This is the subject of the article by Rainer Kazig and Sylvie Laroche. Writing about the sensitive dimension of shopping areas in an urban environment, the authors take three analytical dimensions: the materiality of the object, its aesthetics and finally the atmosphere produced. Like the previous article, this one explores the potential of research that would combine analysis of the geography of retailing and consumption with work on ambience and atmosphere. The results demonstrate the contribution that can be made by cross-fertilization, making it possible to better understand the importance of sensory in consumer practices.