IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-03168937.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Experiments in co-modification: a relational take on the becoming of commodities and the making of market value

Author

Listed:
  • Kristin Asdal

    (UiO - University of Oslo)

  • Béatrice Cointe

    (CSI i3 - Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation i3 - Mines Paris - PSL (École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris) - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - I3 - Institut interdisciplinaire de l’innovation - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, UiO - University of Oslo)

Abstract

Social studies of science have for many years analyzed and demonstrated the key role of experiments to science and the making of facts. But what is the role of experiments in market work? And what, if anything, can we learn from them about markets and commodities? It is perhaps tempting to say that we can learn very little. This paper investigates a series of market research experiments investigating consumers' valuations of farmed fish, and these are almost comical in their painstaking attention to mundane details. However, when looked into closely, they provide key insights into commodification processes and the scholarly literature to understand them. Most importantly, their analysis allows us to grasp how commodities do not simply emerge as the outcome of a one way process directed towards the market, but through a relational process that jointly works with and acts upon things and people, markets and production. The paper works with the notion of co-modification to trace and stay close to these relational processes. In doing this the paper simultaneously strives for an approach that is not framed by the dominant conceptual distinction between production and market, but instead directed towards the materiality and activeness of the things exchanged. The notion of co-modification emphasises that there is more to market that the human hand. The paper shows that it can also be used in a stronger sense to suggest that commodification is a process where things, people, production methods and markets are actively modifying one another.

Suggested Citation

  • Kristin Asdal & Béatrice Cointe, 2021. "Experiments in co-modification: a relational take on the becoming of commodities and the making of market value," Post-Print hal-03168937, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03168937
    DOI: 10.1080/17530350.2020.1846592
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-03168937
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hal.science/hal-03168937/document
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/17530350.2020.1846592?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Donald Mackenzie & Fabian Muniesa & Lucia Siu, 2007. "Do Economists Make Markets? On the Performativity of Economics," Post-Print halshs-00149145, HAL.
    2. Daniel Neyland & Véra Ehrenstein & Sveta Milyaeva, 2018. "Mundane market matters: from ordinary to profound and back again," Journal of Cultural Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(5), pages 377-385, September.
    3. Fabian Muniesa, 2014. "The Provoked Economy," Post-Print halshs-01113031, HAL.
    4. Fabian Muniesa, 2014. "The Provoked Economy: Economic Reality and the Performative Turn," Post-Print halshs-00989576, HAL.
    5. Donald MacKenzie & Fabian Muniesa & Lucia Siu, 2007. "Introduction to Do Economists Make Markets? On the Performativity of Economics," Introductory Chapters, in: Donald MacKenzie & Fabian Muniesa & Lucia Siu (ed.),Do Economists Make Markets? On the Performativity of Economics, Princeton University Press.
    6. Callon, Michel, 2005. "Why virtualism paves the way to political impotence: A reply to Daniel Miller's critique of "The laws of the market"," economic sociology. perspectives and conversations, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, vol. 6(2), pages 3-20.
    7. Kyrre Rickertsen & Frode Alfnes & Pierre Combris & Géraldine Enderli & Sylvie Issanchou & Jason F. Shogren, 2017. "French Consumers' Attitudes and Preferences toward Wild and Farmed Fish," Marine Resource Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(1), pages 59-81.
    8. Lusk, Jayson L. & Roosen, Jutta & Shogren, Jason (ed.), 2011. "The Oxford Handbook of the Economics of Food Consumption and Policy," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199569441.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Loconto, Allison & Rajão, Raoni, 2020. "Governing by models: Exploring the technopolitics of the (in)visilibities of land," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    2. Benjamin Braun, 2016. "From performativity to political economy: index investing, ETFs and asset manager capitalism," New Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(3), pages 257-273, May.
    3. Kristin Asdal & Béatrice Cointe, 2022. "Writing good economics: how texts 'on the move' perform the lab and discipline of experimental economics," Post-Print hal-03429169, HAL.
    4. Faulconbridge, James R. & Muzio, Daniel, 2021. "Valuation devices and the dynamic legitimacy-performativity nexus: The case of PEP in the English legal profession," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    5. Sang-hyoun Pahk, 2017. "Misappropriation as market making: Butler, Callon, and street food in San Francisco, California," Journal of Cultural Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(3), pages 296-308, May.
    6. Gert Meyers & Ine Van Hoyweghen, 2018. "‘This could be our reality in the next five to ten years’: a blogpost platform as an expectation generation device on the future of insurance markets," Journal of Cultural Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(2), pages 125-140, March.
    7. Hervé Dumez, 2018. "Henri Fayol. Performativity of his ideas and oblivion of their creator," Working Papers hal-01676825, HAL.
    8. Aaron Z. Pitluck & Fabio Mattioli & Daniel Souleles, 2018. "Finance beyond function: Three causal explanations for financialization," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 5(2), pages 157-171, June.
    9. Aaron Z. Pitluck, 2016. "How to embrace performativity while avoiding the rabbit hole," Journal of Cultural Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(3), pages 296-303, June.
    10. Robson, Keith & Bottausci, Chiara, 2018. "The sociology of translation and accounting inscriptions: Reflections on Latour and Accounting Research," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 60-75.
    11. Catherine Grandclément & Alain Nadaï, 2018. "Devising the consumer of the competitive electricity market: the mundane meter, the unbundling doctrine, and the re-bundling of choice," Post-Print halshs-03329331, HAL.
    12. Eun-Sung Kim, 2017. "Senses and artifacts in market transactions: the Korean case of agricultural produce auctions," Journal of Cultural Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(6), pages 524-540, November.
    13. Walter, Christian, 2016. "The financial Logos: The framing of financial decision-making by mathematical modelling," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 597-604.
    14. Franck Aggeri, 2017. "How can performativity contribute to management and organization research? Theoretical perspectives and analytical framework [Qu'est-ce que la performativité peut apporter aux recherches en managem," Post-Print hal-01609172, HAL.
    15. Hélène Rainelli & Hélène Rainelli-Weiss, 2019. "Recherche en finance : quand la performativité invite à la réflexivité," Post-Print halshs-02025011, HAL.
    16. Kenneth Iain MacDonald & Catherine Corson, 2012. "‘TEEB Begins Now’: A Virtual Moment in the Production of Natural Capital," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 43(1), pages 159-184, January.
    17. Christian Walter, 2020. "Sustainable Financial Risk Modelling Fitting the SDGs: Some Reflections," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-28, September.
    18. Luzilda C. Arciniega, 2021. "Creating diversity markets through economization: The politics and economics of difference in neoliberal organizations," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 8(2), pages 350-364, June.
    19. Westerdahl, Stig, 2021. "Yield and the city: Swedish public housing and the political significance of changed accounting practices," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    20. Lilian Muchimba & Alexis Stenfors, 2021. "Beyond LIBOR: Money Markets and the Illusion of Representativeness," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(2), pages 565-573, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03168937. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.