Paper short abstract:

This paper compares the production of the mall as a social space across two case studies of shopping malls, one in Maputo, the other in Johannesburg.

Paper long abstract:

Maputo's growing middle and upper class is considered to be one of the most interesting markets for South African real estate investing in shopping malls. While in Johannesburg, even township dwellers do part of their shopping in malls (e.g. Pan Africa Mall in Alexandra), the mall as a specific type of urban space is a rather new phenomena in Maputo, with which many urban dwellers are not familiar with. A well-known Mozambican business man of dubious reputation opened in 2007 the first mall in Maputo, the Maputo Shopping Centre. This peculiar space unites aesthetic inspirations from Saudi-Arabian mall architecture with ideas of shopping and entertainment from Brazil and elsewhere. This paper wants to attempt a comparison between the Maputo Shopping Centre and a regional shopping mall in the north of Johannesburg. How the urban dwellers use, appropriate, and create the mall? What differences and similarities are there in how the mall is produced as a social space? The two case studies will be analysed within a single framework, namely Lefebvre's conceptual triad of the production of space (Lefebvre 1972). The paper forms part of an on-going PhD project on spaces of encounter between residents of wealthy and poor neighbourhoods in Johannesburg and Maputo.