Homemade Matters: Logics of Opposition in a Failed Food Swap. (9th January 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Fitzmaurice, Connor; Schor, Juliet B
• Is Part Of: Social problems. Volume 66:Number 1(2019)
• Page Start: 144
• Page End: 161
• Publication Date: 2018-01-09
• Subjects: money -- inequality -- evaluation -- circuits of commerce -- sharing economy; Social problems -- Periodicals; 301
• DOI: 10.1093/socpro/spx046
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0037-7791

Abstract

Abstract: A rich literature on commensuration and standards of evaluation has yielded important findings on how items are valued. Over the course of a two-year ethnography, we witnessed one effort to create a new economic practice—a monthly swap of "homemade food"—start promisingly but ultimately fail as participants were unable to reach consensus on valuations. They rejected each other's offerings on numerous grounds, including proximity to industrial food, packaging, and excess "artisanal-ness" and alterity, forcing participants to "thread the needle" in search of acceptable qualities. Multiple or competing logics can be reconciled with clear institutional definitions, by using money, or via relational work. In our site, none of these mechanisms were operative. Instead, a multivalent alternative identity biased toward oppositional criteria impeded valuations and robust exchange. We believe this problem is common to a larger class of organizations that define themselves in opposition to the dominant market.