Arvid Sjödin: Thesis PM

Arvid Sjödin presents his thesis PM with the preliminary title "Making walking shoppers: Consumer engineering in welfare state Sweden".

Abstract:

This dissertation aims to examine consumer engineering in Swedish shopping spaces between 1945-1970 through four case studies: (1) the pedestrianized street, (2) the shopping center, (3) the escalator and (4) the self-service store. In these case studies, the dissertation analyzes how walking leisure shopping was engineered as a body performance in a historical situation in which car dependency and inner-city deterioration were considered a threat to the strolling consumer experience. The Swedish postwar period is well researched when it comes to the rationales of social engineering, where, for example, the interior of the private home was engineered to rationalize and modernize the private lives of Swedish citizens, and where citizens were educated on rational and informed consumption. However, less researched is how out-and-about leisure shopping was engineered in the same period, although this period saw increasing planning and engineering of shopping as a body performance in urban settings. This dissertation seeks to investigate these issues through analyzing how body-material conditions for shopping were created and planned in postwar Sweden.