The First Full Shelves

Gazeta Stołeczna and Warsaw's First Supermarket, 1990–1994

Bibliographic Data

ID12269409
AuthorsLeah Valtin-Erwin (0000-0002-0270-2538, Indiana University Bloomington, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume32
Issue4
Pages652-667
Publication date2022-04-19
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueContemporary European History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0960-7773 • E-ISSN: 1469-2171
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s096077732200011x
OpenAlexW4281727547
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited11

After the end of communism, foreign direct investment in Eastern Europe increased dramatically. In December 1990, the Austrian chain BILLA opened the first foreign-owned supermarket in Poland. I examine foreign-owned supermarkets as key spaces of encounter between West and East in which neoliberal ideas about urban space, everyday life, material consumption and retail were promulgated, contested and routinised. Examining coverage of the Warsaw BILLA shops in Gazeta Stołeczna, the local edition of the widely read and arguably most trusted daily newspaper in Poland, I draw from literature in consumer history as well as economic and urban geography alongside concepts from business and marketing to argue that local actors, and in particular the emerging independent press, helped naturalise neoliberal values about consumption and retail in early post-communism

China · Communism · Consumption (sociology · Economic history · Economics · Economy · Foreign direct investment · Newspaper · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · History · Law · Philosophy · Polish Historical and Cultural Studies · Post-Communist Economic and Political Transition · Urbanization and City Planning

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