The study of shopping centres, or “malls”, is now an established subfield in anthropology and urban studies. Yet strangely, few (if any) of these studies have reflected on the etymology of the term shopping mall. Its origin appears to be related to the use of the term National Mall to refer to the design and layout of Washington DC as the future capital of the United States. However, the word mall itself referenced a croquet-like game the aristocracy played in England which was later transformed into a space for strolling where one could be seen and observe others. The history of the term mall is not unlike that of the French boulevard, which had its origins in the use of fortification walls as public spaces where the elite promenaded. The common element underpinning these examples of modern public spaces where people display themselves is that they are architecturally framed spaces. That is, it is the geometry of these spaces that makes the people who use them for display purposes conscious of themselves as objects for the gaze of others. I propose to demonstrate this by drawing on Sartre’s theory of the Other to provide an account of the use of shopping centre spaces that is odds to the more common tendency to invoke Foucault’s theory of the Panopticon depicting them as sites of securitisation and surveillance. The aim of the paper is to show that modern public spaces such as shopping centres transform human consciousness, but without people being directly aware of this transformation in consciousness when they use these spaces. These ideas are illustrated by referring to a survey (and participant-observation) I conducted among users of shopping centres in the Indian Ocean-island of Mauritius, where shopping centres are relatively new and the memory Mauritians have of this transformation in the built environment is still fresh in their minds.

Leo Couacaud obtained a doctorate in anthropology in 2011 from the University of Melbourne. From 2011-2021, he taught anthropology on a full-time basis at the University of Mauritius. Currently he works on a part-time basis at the University of Sydney. His PhD research looked at youth subculture and ghetto life in Kingston, Jamaica. Leo's post-PhD fieldwork has concentrated on the Indian Ocean-island of Mauritius, where he is originally from.