Normalized Heterotopia as a Market Failure in a Spatial Marketing System: The Case of Gated Communities in India

Abstract

This article explores the spatial marketing system in India. It highlights a case where market failure is institutionalized through the normalization of heterotopia in the consumption of gated communities (GCs). We build on the earlier work by Bargends and by Sandberg on spatial marketing systems to discuss the consumption of exclusive space. We find that the gated community leads to heterotopic relations, fantasized living and, the pursuit of identity through spatial purification. This research contributes to macromarketing research by offering three theoretical interpretations of our qualitative study of residents of a gated community in India. First, spatial inequality is found to be a defining process in this spatial marketing system. The creation of such disparities is a deliberate strategy by dominant consumers to ‘other’ the outsiders. This spatial segregation is seen as a market failure. Secondly, branded space emerges as a trope for decoupling with local lower class surroundings through a process of postcolonial mimesis. In the process of imitating the West, residents engage in self-captivity and voluntary seclusion to achieve spatial purification. Thirdly, we extend marketing systems theory by locating spatial purification-related processes and mechanisms at the heart of marketing systems formation and adaptive change.