Abstract

DAVINSON PACHECO, Luis Guillermo  and  ASENJO RAMIREZ, Ulises Armando. Family-owned convenience stores: socio-economic dynamics in a temuco neighborhood, southern Chile. Economía y Sociedad [online]. 2020, vol.25, n.58, pp.69-82. ISSN 2215-3403.  http://dx.doi.org/10.15359/eys.25/58.5.

Family-owned convenience stores are addressed through an ethnographic study in Villa Los Creadores, a neighborhood in Fundo El Carmen, Temuco city, southern Chile. The objective is to take a closer look at the growing problems experienced by these initiatives, including undervaluation, changes in consumption patterns, socio-economic impact due to unequal competition, lack of government support, and the frequent invisibility of merchants. Consequently, using four axes, the paper is focused on validity, the mechanisms that allow operations, commercial logic, and technological resources. Results and conclusions confirm the validity and projections of this small-scale economy, the ways of coexistence they assume with the competition in the framework of globalization, the patterns of neighborhood coexistence around the commercial relationship, and the generation of neighborhood identity of family-owned stores. The multiple functions of the family, modifications to physical spaces, and the use of social networks as an advertising mechanism also appear in these initiatives.

Keywords : microenterprises; ventures; families; retail.

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