Shop 'til You Drop: Shopping as Recreational and Laborious Activity

The City Unbound: Qualitative Approaches to the City

“…Consumption practices are not simply oppressive for women, but offer both pleasure, the exercise of desire and even the possibility for resistance to oppressive relations marked out in other spheres (Nava, 1991). Prus and Dawson (1991) provide a good empirically-based account of shopping practices and their ambiguous role as both labour and pleasure. McCracken's (1988) treatment of the relationship between culture, symbolic meaning and the consumption activities, provides a useful study which combines both a semiotic approach and an attention to the practices which adhere to the symbolic terrain .…”

The allocation of time to grocery shopping: A comparison of Canadian and U.S. households

“…Butler (1991) speAk.q of Canadian malls as tourist attractions. Prus and Dawson (1991) explore shopping as recreational or laborious. Doti and Sharir (1981) found dislike of shopping to have a negative, albeit insignificant, effect on shopping time.…”

Consumers as targets: Autonomy, accountability, and anticipation of the influence process

“…Since this paper focuses on but one aspect of a more holistic set of shopper practices, it should be noted that the larger study from which this statement was derived encompasses the following activities: learning of products and vendors; judging stores; approaching shopping activity (Prus and Dawson, 1991); browsing and looking (Prus, 1991); managing encounters with vendors; assessing trust; contemplating purchases; pursuing good deals; experiencing unanticipated outcomes; becoming repeat customers; shopping in groups (Prus, 1993); comparison shopping; and shopping "Sales." Working from this base, we examine shopper's experiences both "on their own" and "in contact with salespeople" as they strive for autonomy and control amidst vendor concerns with the influence process.…”

“…While the terms "recreational" and "laborious" shopping connote entertainment versus work aspects of purchasing activity, these concepts conceal the rich, multifaceted nature of the activities subsumed by the concept of shopping behavior. Readers interested in when and how anyone might find shopping a more pleasurable or a more laborious undertaking are referred to Prus and Dawson (1991). 7.…”

“…At the same time, ventures into the marketplace represent practical necessities for nearly everyone as well as significant forms of entertainment (Prus and Dawson, 1991;Prus, 1993Denoting a setting in which people may realize new aspects of self (by acquiring new possessions) and face the prospects of losing existing aspects of self (by foregoing the objects one offers in exchange), 1 the marketplace represents an arena in which considerable human drama unfolds. The marketplace brings people together by virtue of its potential for exchange, but the accomplishment of exchange remains a matter of considerable ambiguity and human enterprise.…”