The establishment of the national border as a market: shopping tourism on the Brazil/Uruguay border

Abstract

This work addresses the social dynamics involved in the historically recent process of establishing a globalized product market on the Brazil/Uruguay border, as a result of the creation, in 2010, of so called free shops in some of the cities in that region. Although trade - legal and illegal - is part of the flows that cross the dividing line between the two countries since their formation, the recent creation of tax free zones has led to the establishment of new circuits called “shopping tourism”. In addition to the legal and political aspects that instituted them, the establishment of these new circuits is based on the action of diverse agents that are involved in the logistics of transportation and lodging; in the promotion of shops and products; in the guidance and inspection of travelers/ consumers in regards to customs rules, etc. The ethnography of these dynamics allows us to identify actors and processes implicated in the establishment of the frontier as a market.