Re-thinking queue culture: the commodification of thick time Mark N. Wexler Department of Management Studies, Beedie School of Business, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to highlight both the contribution and the present need to reconfigure the literature on “queue culture” as a precursor of the sociology of waiting. Design/methodology/approach – The study employs a legal-structural lens in comparing the initial conceptual treatment of the archetypal “waiting line” with the “line” modifying sociology of waiting that results in waiting rooms, number and telephone queues and in the experience of online waiting. Findings – The initial conception of the culture of the queue understates the importance of three factors: first, the role of third parties in the design, management and inculcation of rules binding those experiencing thick time; second the degree to which communication technology and its attachment to the “mobilities” paradigm has thinned the experience of thick time and lastly the degree to which the increasing commodification of the wait has resulted in the creation of waiting time as a form of pay as you go flexitime. Social implications – The social construction of waiting and the experience of thick time are shown to be increasingly part of the privatized market experience where queue management innovations not only are commercialized but have strong implications for the egalitarian social assumptions imbedded in the initial queue culture based sociology of waiting. Policy implications support the present pay for use philosophy increasingly applied in the transition from public to private management of space. Originality/value – The self-policing “fairness” of the waiting line is now open to scrutiny given the proliferation of the newly shaped distributional logics imbedded in the management, design and use of waiting spaces. Keywords Communication processes, Flow, Queue culture, Queue management, Sociology of time, Thick time Paper type Conceptual paper Introduction From a sociological perspective the treatment of waiting, waiting lines and queue culture, a set of topics in their prime in the late 1960s and 1970s, led to insights regarding the framing of waiting from a sociological perspective ( Mann, 1969, 1970, 1977). Waiting lines are, this perspective suggests, self-managed. Those waiting would react with a sense of injustice and call upon others in the queue to ward off intruders (Milgram et al., 1986; Schwartz, 1975). Queues are cultures. They provide occasions for conversation and like small world phenomenon generate microcosms of social order (Zerubavel, 1976). Moreover, in this functionalist social systems perspective on queue culture, the intellectual focus was not only on the social psychology of the group but the manner in which this temporary microcosm was an indicator of important societal differences (Martins, 1974; Wajcman, 2008). Societies, which facilitate the development of queues show respect and civility (Boyd, 2006) for those adhering to the group norms. The social system of the queue involves repressing the “me-first” ego of the individual and calling upon the leaderless queue to maintain order (Helweg-Larsen and LoMonaco, 2008). Authority in queue cultures rests less with elites or the powerful but with the ability of the group to both keep and preserve a sense of order and to distribute access when demand exceeds International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy Vol. 35 No. 3/4, 2015 pp. 165-181 © Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0144-333X DOI 10.1108/IJSSP-06-2014-0048 The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/0144-333X.htm 165 Re-thinking queue culture