How Are Markets Made?

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the making of markets. The paper identifies two ideal-typical processes in which markets are made – organized making and spontaneous making – which are often combined in reality. Organized making is defined as a process in which at least two actors come together and decide on the order of the market. There are two ways of organized making of markets, called “state-governed market making” and “self-governed market making.” Spontaneous making is defined as a process in which the market is an unintended result of actors’ activities. The attention sociologists have paid to the issue of market making has been directed largely at rganized market making. This paper develops a sociological approach that integrates both spontaneous and organized market making, and identifies three phases of market making. This involves a discussion of empirical cases, and seven hypotheses are presented that make predictions for the two types of market making. The paper provides theoretical tools for studying the making of markets in history, as well as in our own time. Finally, a number of conditions are presented that must be in place if there is to be a market.Dieses Working Paper analysiert, wie Märkte geschaffen werden. Hierzu werden zwei idealtypische Prozesse identifiziert, die in der Realität oft miteinander gekoppelt sind: die organisierte und die spontane Schaffung von Märkten. Die organisierte Schaffung wird als ein Prozess definiert, in dem mindestens zwei Akteure zusammenkommen und über die Ordnung eines Marktes entscheiden. Hierbei wird zwischen der „staatlich regulierten“ und „selbstgesteuerten“ Schaffung von Märkten unterschieden. Die spontane Schaffung wird als ein Prozess definiert, in dem ein Markt als unbeabsichtigtes Ergebnis aus dem Handeln von Akteuren hervorgeht. Bis zum gegenwärtigen Zeitpunkt wurde vor allem die organisierte Schaffung von Märkten untersucht. Dieses Papier entwickelt einen soziologischen Ansatz, der sowohl die spontane als auch die organisierte Schaffung umfasst und drei Phasen des Schaffungsprozesses identifiziert. Dabei werden empirische Fälle diskutiert und sieben Hypothesen aufgestellt, die Prognosen zu den beiden Arten der Schaffung von Märkten liefern. Darüber hinaus werden theoretische Instrumente vorgestellt, mit denen sich die Schaffung von Märkten im Lauf der Geschichte und in der Gegenwart untersuchen lässt, sowie schließlich die Voraussetzungen, die erfüllt sein müssen, damit ein Markt zustande kommen kann.Introduction Conditions of markets Prerequisites of order Making of markets in history Spontaneous market making The sociological turn Phases of spontaneous market making Organized making State-governed market making Self-governed market making Towards the integration of market making types Conditions and consequences of market making Conclusion Reference

Designing for the Other: Using Knowledge to Upgrade Manufacturing in the Garment Industry

The first purpose of this paper is to theorize on the kind of knowledge that firms need in order to upgrade. The second purpose is to discuss some specific ways to upgrade, especially given the problem of contextual knowledge that manufactures face. To understand upgrading among garment manufacturers in developing countries, we must analyze the meaning of fashion garments. The paper introduces the theoretical notion of contextual knowledge, which furthers the two main findings of the paper. The first finding is empirical: it is a different situation to have a garment-producing firm in a developing country design for final consumer markets in developed countries than it is to have garments designed by someone close to these markets. This is due to a knowledge-gap in the global market. As a result of this first finding, the second and more theoretical one deals with the knowledge context by examining its two dimensions – the lifeworld and the province of meaning.In diesem Discussion Paper wird das Bestreben der Bekleidungshersteller in Entwicklungsländern, ihre Wettbewerbsfähigkeit auf globalen Modemärkten zu erhöhen, in zweierlei Hinsicht analysiert. Erstens wird theoretisch erfasst, mit welcher Art von Wissen Hersteller ihren Produkten ein hohes Ansehen im Markt verschaffen können. Zweitens werden verschiedene Möglichkeiten des Upgradings verglichen, vor allem in Bezug auf das Problem des kontextbezogenen Wissens der Hersteller. Damit verständlich wird, was eine solche "Wertsteigerung" für die Modeindustrie in Entwicklungsländern bedeutet, werden zunächst die Bedeutungs- und Sinnzuschreibungen von Markenmode analysiert. Die Darlegung der theoretischen Auffassung kontextbezogenen Wissens fördert zwei Erkenntnisse zutage, wobei die erste empirischer Natur ist: Es ist ein Unterscheid, ob man einen Bekleidungshersteller in einem Entwicklungsland für den Endverbrauchermarkt eines Industrielandes produzieren lässt oder jemanden, der zu diesen Märkten die räumliche und kulturelle Nähe hat. Der Grund dafür ist eine Wissenslücke im globalen Markt. Folgerichtig bezieht sich die zweite, theoretischere Erkenntnis auf die beiden Dimensionen des Wissenskontextes: die Lebenswelt und die Bedeutungswelt.1 Introduction 5 2 Field and methods 6 3 The garment industry 7 4 Producing clothes 8 5 Information and knowledge 9 6 Contextual knowledge 11 7 Contextual knowledge in the fashion industry 12 8 Upgrading strategies 14 9 Discussion 16 Reference

Identitetsformation i sociala konfigurationer

The purpose of this article is to present a theoretical framework for analyzing the formation of identities. Individual and collective actors' identities are formed over time as a result of positioning and evaluation in what is called social configurations. Social configurations are characterized by order and values that guide, and are used for evaluation of, actors' behavior. Order in social configurations emerges according to two inverted logics: Status and Standard. Order according to Status in a configuration is a function of the firmness of actors' order of identities, which correspond with a value. Standard means that actors' order of identities is a function of how well they perform against the standard (value) that is used for evaluation. In Status the identities are more entrenched than the value, and in Standard the principle of evaluation (the value) is more entrenched than the identities of the actors. The suggested approach can handle institutionalized as well as pre-institutional aspects of social life. A more general point is that configurations are used to study how social order emerges and how it is reconstructed. The empirical examples come from the global garment industry, which has been studied with ethnographic methods

Introduktion: Visuell sosiologi

The purpose of this short article is to give an introduction to, and overview of, visual sociology. What the central task of visual sociology should be is the focus of the article. Some neighboring fields of research are briefly discussed, such as anthropology. The importance and role of theory and empirical material in the field of visual sociology is analyzed. A central finding is that the visual should be seen as a natural part of social science research, and not as a field of its own.Denna korta artikel syftar till att ge en kort introduktion och översikt över den visuella sociologin. Särskilt diskuteras vad den visuella sociologins övergripande uppgift är. Den tar även i viss mån upp närliggande forskningsområden, som exempelvis antropologi. Betydelsen och rollen av teori och empiri inom fältet visuell sociologi analyseras. En central tes är att det visuella bör vara en naturlig del i det samhällsvetenskapliga arbetet, inte ett separat fält

"Yay, Another Lady Starting a Log!": Women's Fitness Doping and the Gendered Space of an Online Doping Forum

This study aims to investigate and dissect the meanings attached to women’s use of performance and image enhancing drugs (PIEDs), how fitness doping can be understood in terms of gender and spatiality, and what implications this has for women’s communicative engagement with one another within an online forum. The study is based on a netnographic and qualitative methodology. Theoretically, it considers a women’s online forum for PIEDs and analyzes it as a community of practice (CofP) and a spatiality in which gender, bodies, and side effects are discussed and negotiated. The results show that although the women’s forum provides a space for women to share their own unique experiences, there is a limit to the extent to which the discussions mirror the experiences and experimentations of women. Instead, discussions are often dominated by men’s voices/experiences. This has two main implications. Firstly, the prevalence of men’s voices can block the development of a women’s CofP. Symbolically, men engage in a sort of cultural manspreading by encroaching on the women’s forum space. Secondly, it has implications for women’s PIED use and use practices. Women seeking out advice or the experiences of other women must navigate through and around men’s contributions

Theorizing transnational labour markets. A research heuristic based on the new economic sociology

Mense-Petermann U. Theorizing transnational labour markets. A research heuristic based on the new economic sociology. Global Networks. 2020;20(3):410-433.In this article, I suggest that transnational labour markets are characterized by their multi‐layered embeddedness, not only in national but also in transnational institutional settings. Hence, the national institutional factors formerly at the centre of sociological labour market theories insufficiently explain the newly emerging transnational labour markets. To account for the full complexity and institutional context of the latter, I propose an inductive theoretical approach to transnational labour markets and develop a research heuristic to instruct empirical studies about particular transnational labour markets and inductive theory building. This heuristic draws on analytical categories as developed by the new economic sociology of markets. The empirical example of the transnational labour market that matches eastern European workers to jobs in the German meat industry serves to illustrate how one can use this heuristic, which reveals some preliminary features of transnational labour markets compared with national ones, as well as some research gaps to be addressed by future studies

Gifted places: the inalienable nature of belonging in place

This paper focuses on the importance of historic, social, and material connections in belonging to place. Mauss’s anthropological concept of a ‘gift’ is deployed to understand how places are cared for by a community over time. The development of tangible and intangible connections between past, present, and future people and places is explored. On the basis of in-depth, qualitative research with a group of people who have long-standing connections to their local place, memories and life-narratives are unravelled to explore the social and material relationships that place embodies. An understanding of place as an inalienable gift may create a moral duty to nurture and pass on places to subsequent generations. The research takes a phenomenological approach in order to illuminate the largely unconsidered associations between personal biographies and material places. After a brief discussion of the data collection methods used, notably photo diaries, some empirical examples are put forward to demonstrate how the research participants act as current custodians of places. The paper concludes by bringing together the different aspects of belonging in place illustrated by these vignettes and shows how they contribute to belonging in place as a moral way of being-in-the-world; that is, what I term ‘an ontological belonging’