Patrik Aspers

Markets in Fashion: A Phenomenological Approach

Interest in contemporary cultural industries has grown in the past decade, as they take on a greater significance in our increasingly consumer-led society. Focusing on the world of fashion photography, this book presents an interdisciplinary approach in which this and other aesthetic markets, such as advertising, modelling, art, music and more, can be viewed. The main thrust of this groundbreaking book, is in developing a theory for these cultural markets, characterized by insecurity, and where status and aesthetic diversity generate order and price differentiation. In these industries, services and products are offered that are a mix of the aesthetic and the economic, and for fashion photographers such as those studied here, it is necessary to carefully position themselves in the market by developing unique photographic styles and separating themselves from competitors. Yet the markets in which these industries operate differ from the type of exchange markets depicted by neoclassical economists, and therefore cannot be considered using such modes of analysis. Instead Aspers conducts his study using empirical phenomenology, an original approach presented here for the first time, which can be easily used in other empirical studies. He draws on original empirical material; participant observation and interviews generated in New York and Stockholm; which bring a depth of analysis and a relevance to this book which academics, researchers and those with a vested interest in such industries will value. Written by one of the worlds brightest young economic sociologists, this fascinating book (previously published in Sweden and enthusiastically received) is endorsed by recognized industry authorities. A noteworthy book, it provides a foothold in the burgeoning sub discipline of economic sociology, and a significant analysis of the economics of the fashion photography industry.

Trade shows and the creation of market and industry

This study addresses the question of the constitution of markets in advanced societies. Specifically, the article studies the role of the traveling trade show in creating the real time computing market, which is part of the US electronics sector, during the mid-1990s. Real time computing products assist the transfer, storage and processing of digital signals in real time and support many of the internet applications we use today. By applying ethnographic methods, we explore the general question of how economic actors cope with uncertainty in the phase of market-making and at the cutting edge of technology. The paper makes two contributions to the existing literature. First, it shows that the attempt to organize a trade show in real time computing was triggered by the uncertainty experienced by sellers regarding the identity of prospective buyers and about the exact use to which they would put the emergent technology which is offered for sale. Secondly, we trace the history of an emergent market. We claim that trade shows for innovative products are important venues at which markets coalesce. The identification and ordering of market actors, the institutionalization of a distinct business culture and the social networks developed among market actors and across the subsidiary markets provided the basic social infrastructure for what later became known as the real time computing industry.

Encounters in the Global Fashion Business: Afterword

This issue of Current Sociology explores the relationship between fashion as a cultural form and fashion as business through five articles by scholars who have done extensive research on the fashion business. The question that underlies the articles concerns the connection between production and consumption of fashion. What is the relationship between them? How can they be studied without marginalizing one or the other? The articles capture in rich detail the way in which fashion is actually produced these days, and their answers are supported by empirical evidence. They offer a clear description of processes within the seemingly tumultuous fashion industry. The global fashion business is a large and diverse sector that comprises traditional manufacturing industry as well as creative sectors typical of the New Economy. The fashion business has long been a leader in industrial outsourcing, and new global peripheries of labour-intensive manufacturing change almost as rapidly as fashion itself. The same can be said about the volatile relationship between technologies, materials, manufacturing, design, branding, marketing and consumption.1 One implication of the fact that the fashion business is both a creative sector and an old-fashioned manufacturing industry is that professionals are required to make both ends of the value chain, i.e. production and consumption, hang together. This is the task of the middle managers, who know how to set up a factory in a developing country, of the buyers, who make decisions about the coming season’s collection, as well as designers working for manufacturers who use their knowledge of fashion to mediate between overseas buyers’ requirements and the abilities of the local factories and workforce.

Heidegger and socio-ontology: A sociological reading

This paper uses the work and employs the tools of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger to attempt to improve sociology. Heidegger’s thinking is employed primarily to undo a paradox of sociology. Sociology focuses on the social, but starts with the assumption of essentially non-social egos that somehow generate a social world. This ‘egologism’ has caused sociology to occupy itself with a number of pseudo-problems. We argue that Heidegger develops what we call a ‘socio-ontological’ approach, which means that human beings are always already social and dwell originarily in a social world. To present this ‘social foundation for sociology’ is the contribution of this paper.

Relational Ontology Being and Order out of Heidegger's Socioontology

This chapter addresses the question of ontology. It is an issue on which each scientific theory explicitly or implicitly has a position, as a theory comes with ontological assumptions. I will in this text show that the ontological question, nonetheless, has been neglected. My point is not to make a philosophical argument; instead, I approach the question of ontology by analyzing the more concrete question of order. How order is made and maintained are profound sociological questions.2 Social scientists have studied order, in terms of law and order, and how, for example, institutions, identities, organizations are socially constructed and “ordered” in relation to each other. Social scientists have also discussed the more profound epistemic level of order, or in other words, the ordering principles of things.

Analyzing Order: Social Structure and Value in the Economic Sphere

The purpose of this article is to analyze social order in the economic sphere. This is done by introducing social configurations as a theoretical notion. Configurations combine social structure of interfacing roles with values. The type of configurations studied here are markets, the most central mechanisms in the economic sphere. It is claimed that any market analysis must account for social structure as well as values. The main argument of this article is that the same type of social structure can demonstrate different underlying values and logics in the economic sphere. This is shown in four empirical examples of markets.

[Book Review] White, Harrison: Identity and Control: How Social Formations Emerge (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008)

W publication of the first edition of Identity and Control in 1992, Harrison White secured a position among contemporary social theorists. Although second editions are not usually reviewed, White’s book calls for a review for two reasons. The first is the changes he has made, and the second is the status of the author of the book. People in fields such as network theory, economic sociology and mathematical sociology have used White’s ideas, but his work has a much broader relevance and it is shown in this new edition. It is no surprise that White is gaining respect in Europe. Though one should hesitate to generalize, sociological theory is still a largely European affair. White can be seen as the father of modern network theory, but in contrast to most of his old network peers, not only does he see network theory as a method, he addresses the phenomenology of networks, how they are constituted and, more generally, the emergence of social formations that we have to grasp if we are to make sense of any network. At least in practice, White is also the father of what has been called ‘relational sociology’. What are these social formations? The first line of the argument is that identities, which are the active poles in the Whitean system, are formed by attempts to control. However, identities can only be stable if they are recognized by others. This, in other words, implies a connection over time, as seen by ‘others’, for an identity to come into being. It is thus not a ready-made actor, who is born free and may have ‘personality,’ which has been imported into economics and some sociological theory, but identity that is the key to action. With this idea, White goes against the ‘folk-psychology’ held by ordinary men and stressing the autonomy of individuals prior to social ties. White is much closer to, for example, Martin Heidegger and American pragmatists, who see man as socially constituted. In White’s approach, context is made up of other identities, a notion that covers, for example, organizations and humans. What is normally called ‘person’ is seen as a result of a set of identities that a person has in different contexts. Identities result from activities in social formations, and these formations, instead of actors or activities, are the smallest social units of analysis. What structural forms can be identified? As I see it, this is a central issue that White addresses. In the attempt to analyse social formations, he also brings up other central questions, such as language and action. Language is interconnected with stories and with social ties, which means that stories are interconnected with networks. White proposes that processes of social formation trigger styles and culture. A formal organization, or a theory like rational choice, is a style which in White’s terminology is more like a script of how things are done. Temporality is an interesting, and highly problematic issue, which is seldom discussed by sociologists. In White’s book, temporality is integrated, for example, in the discussion of how we

Book Review: Harrison White Identity and Control. How Social Formations Emerge Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2nd edn., 2008, 472 pp

W publication of the first edition of Identity and Control in 1992, Harrison White secured a position among contemporary social theorists. Although second editions are not usually reviewed, White’s book calls for a review for two reasons. The first is the changes he has made, and the second is the status of the author of the book. People in fields such as network theory, economic sociology and mathematical sociology have used White’s ideas, but his work has a much broader relevance and it is shown in this new edition. It is no surprise that White is gaining respect in Europe. Though one should hesitate to generalize, sociological theory is still a largely European affair. White can be seen as the father of modern network theory, but in contrast to most of his old network peers, not only does he see network theory as a method, he addresses the phenomenology of networks, how they are constituted and, more generally, the emergence of social formations that we have to grasp if we are to make sense of any network. At least in practice, White is also the father of what has been called ‘relational sociology’. What are these social formations? The first line of the argument is that identities, which are the active poles in the Whitean system, are formed by attempts to control. However, identities can only be stable if they are recognized by others. This, in other words, implies a connection over time, as seen by ‘others’, for an identity to come into being. It is thus not a ready-made actor, who is born free and may have ‘personality,’ which has been imported into economics and some sociological theory, but identity that is the key to action. With this idea, White goes against the ‘folk-psychology’ held by ordinary men and stressing the autonomy of individuals prior to social ties. White is much closer to, for example, Martin Heidegger and American pragmatists, who see man as socially constituted. In White’s approach, context is made up of other identities, a notion that covers, for example, organizations and humans. What is normally called ‘person’ is seen as a result of a set of identities that a person has in different contexts. Identities result from activities in social formations, and these formations, instead of actors or activities, are the smallest social units of analysis. What structural forms can be identified? As I see it, this is a central issue that White addresses. In the attempt to analyse social formations, he also brings up other central questions, such as language and action. Language is interconnected with stories and with social ties, which means that stories are interconnected with networks. White proposes that processes of social formation trigger styles and culture. A formal organization, or a theory like rational choice, is a style which in White’s terminology is more like a script of how things are done. Temporality is an interesting, and highly problematic issue, which is seldom discussed by sociologists. In White’s book, temporality is integrated, for example, in the discussion of how we

[Book Review] MacKenzie, Donald; Muniesa, Fabian; Siu, Lucia (eds.): Do Economists Make Markets? On the Performativity of Economics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007)

F some time, the notion of performativity has been a subject for discussion mostly among European economic sociologists. However, this recent publication by MacKenzie, Muniesa and Siu, Do Economists Make Markets? On the Performativity of Economics, with contributions from economists and sociologists on both sides of the Atlantic, is an indication that the discussion has broadened considerably in appeal. According to these contributions, performativity means economic theories being made to work through a change in the world they are about. Performativity is above all the performation of neo-classical economics, which is assumed to be the dominating school of economics. The performativity approach builds on ideas developed in the science and technology literature that rejects the old-fashioned observer perspective of science, which states that scientists are not part of the world they observe, and that they do not affect it. The general idea of performativity can also be found in the works of John Austin and Judith Butler, but Friedrich Nietzsche was probably the first to discuss it. The edited book reviewed here comprises mostly empirical studies discussing performativity. It is a volume with an introduction and ten substantial chapters by many of the researchers who have become associated with the notion of performativity, a volume that ends with a concluding chapter by the leading thinker and founder of the idea, Michel Callon. Two chapters, one by Petter Holm the other by Donald MacKenzie, are already available in English, but republished here. There is also a much-welcomed translation of the study by Marie-France Garcia-Parpet on the emergence of the strawberry market in Fontaines-en-Sologne. This study was of great importance to Callon, which he acknowledges (p. 335), when he initially formulated the performativity idea. What I especially like with this volume is that it highlights some of the problems connected with the idea of performativity. I praise the editors for including the chapter by Fransesco Guala, as well as the one by Philip Mirowski and Edward Nik-Khah. These two chapters voice substantial critique of the idea of performativity and help to clarify what it means. Mirowski and Nik-Khah put the searchlight on performativity by drawing partly on earlier work by Guala. They report on an empirical study of the construction of a way to ‘auctioning spectrum licenses to the highest bidder’ (pp. 200–1). In contrast to Callon, they show that conflicts over how markets should be constructed involved more than one idea of the market. Their chapter includes a thorough critique of the actor-network approach that Callon and Latour have developed. We can understand this critique in relation to what Callon writes in the concluding chapter of the book. Callon’s defence of his position, however, is murky. Essentially, he says that ‘everything’ is performed, and that the ontology of social reality is reduced to speech acts in a language game. He argues that everyone, or at least ‘economists’ in the broad sense, which

Book Review: Donald MacKenzie, Fabian Muniesa and Lucia Siu(eds) Do Economists Make Markets? On the Performativity of Economics

F some time, the notion of performativity has been a subject for discussion mostly among European economic sociologists. However, this recent publication by MacKenzie, Muniesa and Siu, Do Economists Make Markets? On the Performativity of Economics, with contributions from economists and sociologists on both sides of the Atlantic, is an indication that the discussion has broadened considerably in appeal. According to these contributions, performativity means economic theories being made to work through a change in the world they are about. Performativity is above all the performation of neo-classical economics, which is assumed to be the dominating school of economics. The performativity approach builds on ideas developed in the science and technology literature that rejects the old-fashioned observer perspective of science, which states that scientists are not part of the world they observe, and that they do not affect it. The general idea of performativity can also be found in the works of John Austin and Judith Butler, but Friedrich Nietzsche was probably the first to discuss it. The edited book reviewed here comprises mostly empirical studies discussing performativity. It is a volume with an introduction and ten substantial chapters by many of the researchers who have become associated with the notion of performativity, a volume that ends with a concluding chapter by the leading thinker and founder of the idea, Michel Callon. Two chapters, one by Petter Holm the other by Donald MacKenzie, are already available in English, but republished here. There is also a much-welcomed translation of the study by Marie-France Garcia-Parpet on the emergence of the strawberry market in Fontaines-en-Sologne. This study was of great importance to Callon, which he acknowledges (p. 335), when he initially formulated the performativity idea. What I especially like with this volume is that it highlights some of the problems connected with the idea of performativity. I praise the editors for including the chapter by Fransesco Guala, as well as the one by Philip Mirowski and Edward Nik-Khah. These two chapters voice substantial critique of the idea of performativity and help to clarify what it means. Mirowski and Nik-Khah put the searchlight on performativity by drawing partly on earlier work by Guala. They report on an empirical study of the construction of a way to ‘auctioning spectrum licenses to the highest bidder’ (pp. 200–1). In contrast to Callon, they show that conflicts over how markets should be constructed involved more than one idea of the market. Their chapter includes a thorough critique of the actor-network approach that Callon and Latour have developed. We can understand this critique in relation to what Callon writes in the concluding chapter of the book. Callon’s defence of his position, however, is murky. Essentially, he says that ‘everything’ is performed, and that the ontology of social reality is reduced to speech acts in a language game. He argues that everyone, or at least ‘economists’ in the broad sense, which