Sociologist Sangyoub Park forwarded us a fascinating account of Ikea’s business model… for China. \u00a0In the U.S., there are rather strict rules about what one can do in a retail store. \u00a0Primarily, one is supposed to shop, shop the whole time, and leave once one’s done shopping. \u00a0Special parts of the store might be designated for other activities, like eating or entertaining kids, but the main floors are activity-restricted.<\/p>\n
Not in China<\/a>. \u00a0Ikea has become a popular place to\u00a0hang out. \u00a0People go there to read their morning newspaper, socialize with friends, snuggle with a loved one, or take a nap. \u00a0Older adults have turned it into a haunt for singles looking for love<\/a>. \u00a0Some even see it as a great place for a wedding<\/a>.<\/p>\n This is a great example of the social construction of spaces: what seems like appropriate behavior in a context is a matter of cultural agreement. \u00a0In the U.S., we’ve accepted the idea that the chairs in our local furniture store are not for socializing. \u00a0Some of us, depending on our privilege, could probably get ourselves arrested if we took a nap at\u00a0our local Mattress King. \u00a0But this isn’t an inevitable truth. \u00a0If we all just collectively change our minds, the people with power included, then things could be different.<\/p>\n Cross-posted at Pacific Standard<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sociologist Sangyoub Park forwarded us a fascinating account of Ikea’s business model… for China. \u00a0In the U.S., there are rather strict rules about what one can do in a retail store. \u00a0Primarily, one is supposed to shop, shop the whole time, and leave once one’s done shopping. \u00a0Special parts of the store might be designated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":61132,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[15,387,106,10514,272,1772,3920,8118,293],"class_list":["post-61128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-culture","tag-dating","tag-friendship","tag-leisure","tag-marriagefamily","tag-nation-china","tag-nation-united-states","tag-organizationsinstitutions","tag-social-construction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2014\/01\/2-2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61128"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69553,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61128\/revisions\/69553"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}