Journal article
Selling, sharing, and everything in between: The hybrid economies of collaborative networks
D Scaraboto
Journal of Consumer Research | OXFORD UNIV PRESS INC | Published : 2015
DOI: 10.1093/jcr/ucv004
Abstract
Recent consumer research has examined contexts where market-based exchange, gift-giving, sharing, and other modes of exchange occur simultaneously and obey several intersecting logics, but consumer research has not conceptualized these so-called hybrid economic forms nor explained how these hybrids are shaped and sustained. Using ethnographic and netnographic data from the collaborative network of geocaching, this study explains the emergence of hybrid economies. Performativity theory is mobilized to demonstrate that the hybrid status of these economies is constantly under threat of destabilization by the struggle between competing performativities of market and nonmarket modes of exchange. ..
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Funding Acknowledgements
This article is based on the author's dissertation research, which was conducted at York University and partially funded by the Susan Mann Dissertation Scholarship. The author thanks the associate editor and the three anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments and guidance. She also expresses her deep gratitude to Robert Kozinets, Eileen Fischer, Bernardo Figueiredo, Ahir Gopaldas, and to participants on a marketing seminar at York University for their invaluable insights on earlier drafts of this article. Finally, the author specially thanks participants in the geocaching network, who welcomed her warmly and walked her through the complexities of their fascinating hobby.