Sub-theme 39: Markets in the Making: Observing, Measuring and Performing Economic Exchange
Call for Papers
This EGOS sub-theme revolves around markets; the way they work or, more accurately, the way we think they work. Theories of markets are not innocent or neutral. Markets (or rather their failure) not only form the raison d’être for organizations (cf. Coase, 1937), but also constitute a dominant logic in contemporary organizations (Friedland & Alford, 1991; Thornton, 2002). They affect economic practices in all manners of ways: which markets are analyzed, how markets 'in the wild' are analyzed, how they work and fail to work, are all questions where models form, inform, or perform practice (Callon, 1998; MacKenzie et al., 2007).
Accounts of markets are wide and varied.
Rational choice theory accompanied by methodological individualism has dominated how neo-classical economists view the market,
this being particularly prominent in the Efficient-Market Hypothesis (Fama, 1970). Sociologists, seeing markets as ensnared
in a web of social relationships, have investigated how norms and values mitigate the uncertainties underlying economic transactions
(DiMaggio & Powell, 1983; Fligstein & Dauter, 2007; White, 1981). Contesting the notion of atomistic trading partners,
sociologists have emphasized how economic agents are acculturated into embedded exchange through compliance with reigning
market institutions. Critical management scholars have stressed that the increasing adoption of market thinking in organizations
facilitates subordination through the 'financialization' of labour relations (Adler et al., 2008). Social studies of markets
(Callon, 1998; MacKenzie et al., 2007) and cultural economy (du Gay & Pryke, 2002; Pryke & du Gay, 2007) contend that
markets are not immune to inquiry and observation, claiming that many of the practices, tools and devices that are used in
markets are heavily influenced by centuries of economic thought, both lay and academic. And finally, anthropological studies
of markets have even challenged the privileging of expertise that such social studies entail (Riles, 2010).
While all of these accounts differ significantly in their views of how clearly the domains of science and the market are separated,
to date there have been but few opportunities for these perspectives to interact, collide, exchange ideas, feed off each other
or engage in lively academic debate. In this sub-theme we want to accomplish exactly that. Therefore we expressly invite papers
from a broad range of academic orientations in order to bring together contemporary thoughts on markets. We welcome studies
that incorporate insights from a wide array of disciplines, including (but not limited to) anthropology, sociology, organization
science, economics, history, linguistics, psychology, political science and philosophy. We are particularly interested in
scholarly work that addresses the epistemological and ontological status of markets.
The questions we ask are:
- Where do markets come from and what are their historical origins (Braudel, 1982; White, 1981)?
- Who are the market makers and what role do expert systems play in economic exchange (Hsu, 2006; Riles, 2010)?
- How do market devices perform economic exchange (Callon 2007, McFall, 2009)?
- How do facts get produced and how are markets 'prepared' (Pryke et al., 2007)?
- If we do not give primacy to the social (Maurer, 2008), how does materiality feature in and become generative of the way we enact economic exchange (Callon, 1998; MacKenzie et al., 2007)?
- How does 'number' materialize in markets (cf. Verran, 2001)?
- What is the epistemological and ontological status of 'value' as well as the market categories by which it is expressed (Boltanski & Thévenot, 2006; Kahl, 2007)?
- How does economic exchange within organizational boundaries differ from economic exchange within markets (Mol & Wijnberg, 2011; Stark, 1986)?
References
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