Negotiating Public Space in a Shopping Mall

Public space has been described as a contested space, which is also manifested in its many different conceptualisations. This chapter concentrates on what has been called the semi-public space: a space with an ambiguous status, used publicly, yet, at the same time, heavily controlled and influenced by private interests. The review will focus on shopping malls, which have become iconic semi-public spaces both by their media prominence and academic attention directed to them, and by their popularity in the everyday use of urban populations. The aim of this chapter is to study social control as a phenomenon which contributes to this popularity, identifying three categories of social control and discussing their contribution to the way shopping malls are presented by their management.