| Abstract: | This is a participant-observation study of shopping in Poland during severe consumer shortages. Field work was done in November and December of 1982 in three Polish cities. The focus was to observe shopping queues, behavior in those queues, and to interview shoppers about their shopping tactics within and outside of the queues. One-hundred and forty queues were observed and 158 people were interviewed. Observations of queues included their size, composition, organization over long waits, and the behavior of queue participants. Shopping tactics are actions meant to locate scarce goods and save time with shopping. Some shopping tactics were done alone, but more likely these tactics involved others in shopping and distribution teams. This study is placed in the sociological context of response to scarcity and disruption. |
