Call for papers for mini-conference at SASE 28th Annual Conference, ‘Moral Economies, Economic Moralities’, June 24-26, 2016, University of California, Berkeley
DEADLINE FOR ABSTRACTS: January 18th, 2016
With the expansion of web platforms such as Airbnb.com, Craigslist.org, Etsy.com or Vizeat.com, people are encouraged to commodify their personal possessions as well as their domestic or leisure practices. More generally, this Mini-Conference scrutinizes the marketization of practices previously considered as recreational or domestic, such as cooking, doing handicrafts, blogging, taking care, raising pets, carrying a child, etc. The commodification of the attributes of the self – human body, personal data… – is also in the scope of this issue. The moral dimensions ofmarketization will be of special interest: what moral changes favor the commodification of previously non commodified activities? How do market and domestic orders of worth combine? Are markets used to achieve non-economic ends? What about the distinction between legal activities and grey economy in such emerging markets? The main goal of the Mini-Conference is to improve our understanding of the causes and effects – at individual and collective levels – of the extension of the market.
The following topics could be addressed:
1) Becoming an entrepreneur
By commodifying their domestic or leisure practices, amateurs or ordinary people turn themselves into entrepreneurs. They become concerned by financial investments, by the need to promote their products or services, and they must learn how to engage in economic transactions as sellers. Such investments are expected to alter work-life articulation and to transform the meaning of their activity. Actually, different kinds of commitment in marketization, different profiles and finally different career paths can be identified in each domain.
2) Online platforms as new marketplaces
The marketization of everyday
3) The social and moral status of newly commodified practices
Market rules are often considered as opposed to social and moral values. However, marketization could also be perceived as a means to improve social recognition, at individual and collective levels, since transactions are also providers of social relationships. Simultaneously, the marketization of specific practices could favor their social upgrading. These questions could be particularly scrutinized in a gender perspective, as they especially concern traditionally depreciated feminine activities.
4) Market regulation
The marketization of domestic and leisure activities blurs the boundaries between amateurs and professionals. Leisure and work are less and less differentiated. For example, bloggers tend to compete with journalists, private drivers with taxi drivers and so on. The public reactions of well-established professions towards the rise of new “competitors” express the disrupting effect of the commodification of domestic or leisure practices. This phenomenon therefore questions the existing regulation of professions.
Abstracts of no longer than 1000 words should be submitted by January 18th, 2016. If accepted, a full paper will be required by May 30, 2016.
All submissions should be made via the SASE website.
If a paper proposal cannot be accommodated within a mini-conference, organizers will forward it to the program committee, who will pass it on to one of the networks as a regular submission. Acceptance notifications will be sent by February 23, 2016.
Queries can be sent to anne.jourdain@dauphine.fr;
