Paper short abstract:

The paper presents the dual practices of styling and experiencing homeliness as found in three "retrofied" shopping streets in Gothenburg, a processes rendering objects of the past, as well as the shops and streets  an aura of warmth and coziness.

Paper long abstract:

This paper departs from the concept of reheritage and the market for reheritage products that has grown rapidly the past decades (Appelgren & Bohlin 2015). The focus is on the dual practices of styling and experiencing homeliness found in a study of three shopping streets in Gothenburg. The paper starts by presenting the blurring of the borders between shop and street, where interiors are moved outside the storefronts to provide inviting homelike sceneries and interiors are made into appealing social places for chatting, drinking and relaxing. It then moves to a focus on the many devices specifically used to attract consumers in terms of what we call 'affective captation' (authors in press): meaning "seducing" as in diverting someone from his or her path, that is supporting/eliciting feelings of homeliness. This concept borrows from Massumi's (2003) work on affect and Cochoy's (2007) on market attachment. By the use of affective captation we show how homeliness (attraction, cosiness), online as well as offline, is performative in the double sense of mood (the personal felt sensation or feeling involving consumers' personal memories or previous experiences and so forth associated with objects, commercial environments and modes of exchange) and mode (the staged, calculated, provoked, carefully selected and performed assemblage of marketised homeliness/cosiness/ attractive atmosphere. Furthermore, the creating of this special atmosphere can be understood as a practice of distinguishing the reheritage market from the mainstream market through creating alternative values with the help of these specific placemaking practises.