ABSTRACT
This chapter examines cultural responses to shopping in Canada. It also begins an attempt to theorize the Canadian mall from a cultural standpoint. Rem Koolhaas' Harvard Design School's Guide to Shopping suggests that shopping might be the 'terminal' form of human organization, one that replicates public spaces and urban centres while superseding earlier social formations. The chapter argues that consumption has ceased to function as a culturally understood narrative in Canada, thereby opening a potential in the way that we might conceptualize social interactions within capitalism today. This chapter presents a conversation about the forms that consumption takes in Canada. It discusses different piece from Heather Spears' poetry sequence 'The Dolphin in the West Edmonton Mall', from her 1988 book The Word for Sand, a book that won both the Governor General's Award and the Pat Lowther Award and was recently reprinted by publisher Wolsak and Wynn.
