Shopping For Freedom: Moroccan Women's Experience In Supermarkets

Contemporary conceptualizations of consumer freedom rely on a Western view of the autonomous self (e.g. Arnould 2007). The idealized free agent has the capacity of choice and is the ultimate source of her will (e.g. Mick and Humphreys 2008). Deriving from this, studies on consumer freedom have largely investigated the various strategies of consumers to construct their freedoms along with their autonomy and independence (e.g. Penaloza and Barnhart 2011). On the other hand, recent works in non-Western contexts suggest that interdependence and conformity, rather than independence and autonomy, should be understood as manifestations of individual freedom. In this approach, freedom refers to the voluntary choice to conform to a dominant discourse and related norms (Abu Lughod 2013; Markus and Schwartz 2010). Our research contributes to this ongoing debate. We propose an emergent conceptualization of consumer freedom at the meso level. We explore how consumers construct their freedom within the specificities of their socio-cultural contexts. Freedom holds two conceptualizations: the negative and the positive (Berlin 1969). In its positive form, freedom to is about the presence of something (i.e. self mastery, autonomy). The positive form of freedom largely dominated in modern culture (Firat and Dholakia 1998). In its negative form, freedom from is about the absence of something (i.e. external constraints). External constraints refer to actions, influences, and/or intrusions of others in one's decision and lead to forms of interference (Berlin 1969), domination (Pettit 2011) or oppression (Arendt 1951; Sen 1999). Our research questions include: What are the conditions to consumer freedom? What roles do consumers and the market play in the construction of consumer freedom? We locate our research among Moroccan women in Casablanca and explore their shopping experiences in supermarkets. The Moroccan woman is constrained in her movements and thoughts by a dominant discourse that is of patriarchal kind (e.g. Mernissi 2010). The dominant power of the Moroccan male is supported by a rigid set of norms, which regulates women's behaviors (e.g. Sadiqi 2003). The market is one of the strongest male institutions in Morocco (e.g. Geertz 1978). Nevertheless, it seems to provide several conditions to facilitate women's freedoms (Kapchan 1996). We rely on a three years ethnography to access and portray the experiences of grocery shopping among Moroccan women. The first researche