Abstract
Economic sociologists agree that monetary transactions are not necessarily antithetical to meaningful social relationships. However, they also accept that creating 'good matches' between the two requires hard work. In this article, I contribute to the relational program in economic sociology by examining a common but understudied type of work in which one party to a relationship stands to benefit from it financially. I identify in these highly commercialized contexts a particular style of relational work anticipated, but not fully developed, in Pierre Bourdieu's writings: disinterest. I argue that the disinterested style is manifest by economically implicated individuals who downplay their objectively apparent economic interests in order to preserve or encourage good feelings about a relationship that is meaningful to them. Drawing upon data from the direct selling industry, I show how distributors use disinterest to navigate their work.
Highlights
The conventional wisdom is that economic transactions in meaningful social relationships are fundamentally problematic, the Zelizerian tradition in economic sociology holds that social life marches forward in many instances not despite the presence of economic transactions in social relationships but, importantly, because of them
The puzzle of direct selling—how and why sellers are willing to use friends and family for personal gain, and how they traverse that murky territory—is not too puzzling if sellers are naive about how one should treat a friend or family member, or if they are not acting out of economic interest
How are relationships possible in commercialized settings, where everything is for sale, even those relationships? I examine this question by investigating one side of commercialized relationships and asking, how sellers align their economic interests with their relational ones
Summary
The Problem of Economic Transactions the conventional wisdom is that economic transactions in meaningful social relationships are fundamentally problematic, the Zelizerian tradition in economic sociology holds that social life marches forward in many instances not despite the presence of economic transactions in social relationships but, importantly, because of them. “How to Sell a Friend: Disinterest as Relational Work in Direct Sales.” Sociological Science 8: 1-25.
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