The Ethics of Freedom in Consumption: An Ethnographic Account of the Social Dimensions of Supermarket Shopping for Moroccan Women.

This research brings together insights from philosophy, political theory, and consumer research in conceptualizing and empirically examining the social dimension of negative and positive freedom in consumption. Drawing from ethnographic observations and interviews with Moroccan women regarding their shopping at the supermarket, the findings detail the roles of husbands, store employees, extended family members and friends as constrainer, protector, enabler, facilitator, indulger, and witness. The discussion explains a 'domino effect' in such innovative marketplaces, as these market and social actors together enact positive and negative forms of freedom in consumption in ways that co-disrupt social traditions.