Special Issue on Alternative Economies

Abstract

Alternative economies represent an essential part of ‘‘cultures of resistance’’ (Williams 2005) to the increasing commodification of social life and the monolithic nature of global capitalism. For authors such as Gibson-Graham (2006) and Williams (2005), dominant (capitalist) readings of the economy overemphasize profit-motivated and monetized market exchanges. Yet, various alternative spheres of economic activity exist where exchange is not necessarily monetized and/or underpinned by motivations for profit. Alternative economies constitute responses to the precarious conditions in everyday lives of individuals, and their lack of access to and scarcity of resources and competences (Day 2005; Williams 2005). Alternative economic models rest on shared commitments to minimize economic domination and exploitation and thereby alleviate the subordinated position of local subjects (Day 2005; Gibson-Graham 2006). Specifically, alternative economies have (re-) emerged in local communities where various groups and movement actors work towards localized development and are driven by their hope to improve human conditions. These activities are enacted in different type of transactions, labor, and economic enterprises. They are sometimes ground in objection to, but also run parallel with institutionalized markets under such nomenclature as ‘‘social and solidarity economy,’’ ‘‘sharing economy,’’ and ‘‘neighborhood work’’ (Day 2005; Gibson-Graham 2006). Recently, the marketing field has shown increasing interest in such alternative forms of exchange and marketplaces. Issues addressed include the crisis of post-industrialism (Varey 2011) and the political construction of marketing systems (Arndt 1981; Layton 2009). Macromarketing researchers in particular have been studying the impacts of exchange on relational parties and their surroundings (Laczniak and Murphy 2008), responses to consumer society, such as anticonsumption (Chatzidakis and Lee 2013), social entrepreneurship and informal exchange systems (Viswanathan et al. 2014), and alternative forms of trade organizations (Geiger-Oneto and Arnould 2011; Golding 2009). Consumer research also has tackled collaborative forms of consumption (cf. Botsman and Rodgers 2010) such as access-based forms of consumption (Bardhi and Eckhardt 2012), sharing (Belk 2010), the fluidity of activity such as co-creation and prosumption (Arvidsson 2008; Ritzer and Jurgeson 2010), and creation of heterotopias (Chatzidakis et al. 2012; North 1999). Nonetheless, current understandings of alternative economies remain fragmented leaving larger scale questions about the intersections and interrelations of alternative economy movements largely underexplored and undertheorized. Correspondingly, questions around new discourses of economy and economic possibility, the cultivation of noncapitalist subjectivities, and alternative forms of political and marketplace participation remain presently underdeveloped. In the light of our limited understanding of these phenomena and how they play out in real life, we invite papers that specifically examine alternative economies both conceptually and empirically. Contributions are invited on (but not limited to) the following topics: