Mermaids as market creators: Cultural entrepreneurship in an emerging practice

Abstract

With the example of the emergence of professional mermaids, this article shows how primarily young, female enterprising performers developed a new aesthetic category, generated employment from it, and in that way created a market for their services and products. To conceptualize this development, the article employs the Callonian program in market studies into research on cultural entrepreneurship, highlighting that markets are constantly in-the-making and innovation processes cannot be ascribed to the activities of singular “hero figures.” This adds to the existing literature on cultural entrepreneurship by calling attention to collective entrepreneurial practices taking place on the fringes of the cultural sector.