Convenience Stores as Social Spaces

Liquor, tobacco, processed food, and sugary snacks: this is the range of products in convenience stores, which dominate the retail landscape in impoverished neighborhoods in the United States. Using ethnographic research conducted in Chicago and Detroit, in Convenience Stores as Social Spaces: Trust and Community in Deprived Neighborhoods in the U.S., Cosima Werner examines the contested meanings of such stores and the ways in which they are construed as social spaces within these neighborhoods. At first glance, convenience stores appear to be the opposite of social spaces: cameras capture every interaction of shoppers, security personnel keep their eye on suspicious behavior, and bulletproof glass may even separate the employees from the clientele. Although many security measures, language barriers, and cultural differences are obstacles to building trust, trustful relationships are essential for many shoppers to have access to resources such as loans, food, drinks, or information to make ends meet. Drawing on concepts of trust and mistrust that are inherent in social atmospheres and looking at relations between various people and their practices, this book analyzes the various meanings of convenience stores as social spaces.