Process Of Commodification Research Articles

Collective payments for ecosystem services: a counterpart of commodification and privatization trends in nature conservation?

Payments for ecosystem services (PES) gained an increasing importance in science and politics within the last decades. Although the enthusiasm about PES is particularly high in Environmental Economics, opponents criticize the market-based character of PES and the associated commodification as well as privatization trends. By means of a systematic literature review we aim at shedding light on the complex and controversial debate about how to define commodification and related privatization processes and how they are linked to PES outcomes. We do so by setting a particular focus on the potentials and challenges of community-based and collective PES (C-PES), also in contrast to PES targeting land under private land tenure (P-PES). Our results reveal that C-PES show promising results when targeting local communities with a high level of social capital. However, there is a lack of studies that systematically assess the relations between different degrees of commodification and the ecological and social outcome of PES programs. For this reason, we provide a new conceptual framework of commodification by highlighting two interrelated spheres, where PES-related commodification processes take place: The first sphere relates to the commodification of ES-providing land, which greatly depends on the land tenure regime in place. The second sphere addresses the commodification of ecosystem services (ES). Our review indicates that C-PES show rather low degrees of commodification in the first sphere because the ES-providing land is often less embedded into private land markets. This is due to often missing alienation rights, more complex decision-making processes, and a potentially lower profit-orientation of the landowners. Empirical long-term studies are needed to investigate changes in both spheres of commodification over time, their potential interactions, and how they affect the outcome of C-PES and P-PES programs.

Komodifikasi Audiens-Penonton dalam Program Ajang Pencarian Bakat The Voice: All-Stars GTV

This research examines the audience commodification process in the search program The Voice: All-Stars GTV. This study uses a qualitative-descriptive method with the political economy theory approach of Vincent Mosco's media. The results of the study show that audience commodification occurs in The Voice: All-Stars GTV in several stages. First, when the event succeeds in attracting advertisers to become the main sponsor. Second, when involving the audience when voting to support the contestants through the RCTI+ and MotionPay applications with top-up balances. The two applications were developed by MNC Group as the owner of the media that broadcast The Voice: All-Stars GTV. Apart from being successful in gaining advertisements, the television stations also succeeded in promoting other products in the form of applications developed by the company.

PIETY COMMODIFICATION OF NIQABIS IN SOCIAL MEDIA INSTAGRAM

This study explains how the term of piety which is shown by well-known niqabis women on a social media like Instagram that has been negotiated and commodified for a certain reason. By using theoretical concept concerning on Commodification of Piety, which means labelling the name of Islam (kind of a new piety) to explain commodity (Shirazi, 2016), this study argues that by using Instagram, niqabis women who have an online Muslim clothing brand has modified the values of piety on women’s body in Islamic context. A qualitative approach of feminist paradigm was used to see the various digital data of a caption and photo in their Instagram posts. The result of this study shows that niqabis exploit the values of piety in the form of “hijrah” and “syar’i clothing” categorization to build an Islamic brand that unconsciously contains Muslim women body knowledge propaganda. This study concludes that there is a commodification process on the values that constructed on Instagram. That process is not only involving niqab and the piety, but also the commodity of women body to praise the Muslim clothing product sale.

A CRITICAL DEBATE ON THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF DIGITAL MEMORY

Digital technologies have transformed the conventions of preserving, recalling, and forgetting the past as they provide new digital tools and platforms to remember, to forget and to collect data for individuals, societies, and corporations. With the convergence of new media, memory gains a global aspect along with its personal and local characteristics and turns into the digitally mediated memory. These technologies enable digital memory to be indexed, archived, circulated, and processed infinitely in cyberspace. Therefore, the advancements in the Web and cloud computing technologies yield new dimensions for memory studies to be discussed from a political economy perspective since digitally mediated memory has some economic, political, societal, and cultural impacts on societies. This study conceptually scrutinizes the commodification processes of digital memory and analyzes its material and immaterial bases from a political economy perspective, and claims that they are fundamentally interwoven. The rare earths which are used to produce technological devices are considered as the material basis. Additionally, major technology corporations using these rare earths, and their data centers are taken as the extensions of its materiality. Digitally archived, managed, and retrieved memory is considered as data, which represent immaterial basis of digital memory. The materiality and immateriality of digital memory are not regarded as independent from the inherent power relations and ideologies of the current data economy. Thus, this study aims to discuss digital memory from a political economy perspective to reveal the flow between its materiality and immateriality and the inherent power relations in the data economy. It also poses the potential challenges, risks, and outcomes we may encounter in such an economic system.

A Critique of “Speculative Commodities”: Rethinking the Value and Commodification of Gem-Resources Under Extractive Capitalism

ABSTRACT The value of many natural resources is not fixed; it depends on factors both intrinsic and external to the commodity; such is the case of precious stones. These commodities are termed “speculative commodities.” Here, I take the example of gemstones and conceptually trace and analyse the process of their commodification, with the help of Marxist theory and its various derivatives. The process of commodification and value addition that these resources go through are unique: partly, value is added and created through labour and their specialised artisanal crafts, but the major part of the profit is generated through discursive mechanisms of stories and narratives, the manipulation of supplies, and the manufacturing of demands through advertisements around each stone to make it valuable and pricey. The diamond and gemstone industry reaps extravagant profits from the otherwise useless pieces of stones – barring some industrial uses and the aesthetic value that they have. But their aesthetic dimension hides the greed, lust, violence, and aggression inherent in their commodification – many of these stones emerge from conflicts in the Global South – and that this source and history only add to their allure.

Politicization and Commodification of Tourism: Implications for George Town World Heritage Site

The inscription of World Heritage Status to both George Town and Melaka in 2008 had given tremendous impacts in terms of tourist arrivals and the growth of economy. While the inscription has pinned Malaysia on the global tourism map, the rapid pace of tourism development has resulted in a series of problems brought by tourism commodification. Tourism gentrification, outmigration and change of building uses are among the common symptoms of commodification. Taking George Town as a case study, this paper aims to explore the implications of tourism commodification, particularly on the physical impacts and local residents. This study is essential to identify the stage of commodification of the study area, whose development are based on the heritage commodification. Based on the site observations and semi-structured interviews with the residents, administrative staffs and business owners in the study area, several arguments are put forward in this paper. First, a phased process of tourism commodification has taken place in George Town, and triggered significant changes in lifestyle, community development, property market values and land use development. Second, George Town has shifted from a free trading port to a productivist heritage-scape, with local government being the principal influencing factor. Findings of the study reveal that commodification does not necessarily destroy the meaning of heritage in urban heritage destination, but also helps to improve economic status and quality of life of the local residents. Future research on commodification should be conducted in other World Heritage Sites and compare with the commodification stage in George Town World Heritage Site.

SELLING RELIGIOUS RITUALS IN INDONESIA: Commodification of Umrah Pilgrimage by Travel Agents

The flourishing lucrative business of Umrah pilgrimage in Indonesia has disrupted pilgrims from the substantial meaning of Umrah as a form of worship. The travel business industry designs some umrah packages as merely commonplace travel pack­ages, instead of as a form of devoted worship. In­nu­merable number of umrah travel agents relent­less­ly promote attractive packages for umrah pilgrimage at an affordable price using any possible marketing strategies to win customers, the attempts which downgrade the pilgrimage as a mere traded commo­dity. This paper aims to reveal the marketing strate­gies of Umrah travel agents to promote their umrah packages, which is highly correlated with the commodification of religion. This article finds two primary marketing strategies of umrah travel agents: product design in various umrah packages, celebrity endorsement, involvement of managers of religious social institutions as distributors, and giving bonuses. The process of commodification of Umrah is carried out by incorporating popular cultural sentiments in Umrah products, and turns umrah into a product of worship that offers convenience.

Commodification and Shifting of Functions in the Tradition of Ngadatangkeun in Sundanese Society

This article discusses the shift in functions and forms of tradition in society. One of the essential functions of tradition for society is a symbolic function. This symbolic function is found through community involvement in traditional processions where they find meaning in solidarity and togetherness. However, the symbolic function of the tradition can actually be used to obtain non-symbolic interests such as achieving economic benefits. This research is focused on the Ngadatangkeun tradition in the Sundanese people in the Majalengka region, West Java. By using qualitative research methods with data collection techniques through participatory participation, interviews and literature review, this study argues that commodification has changed traditions' form and function from being symbolic to being materialistic. This commodification process has altered the symbolic social exchange in tradition into an economic function in the context of exchanging material (objects). This happens because the traditional procession has strongly emphasized aspects of material gain and private ownership as a form of materialistic attitude. This change is the background for the emergence of a new function in the Ngadatangkeun tradition, namely the economic function. However, the combination of symbolic functions and the development of new financial functions of tradition encourages tradition's duality, which complements each other rather than negates these functions.

CULTURAL-BASED TOURISM IN CIREBON: A STUDY OF COMMODIFICATION IN CULTURAL TOURISM

The people of Cirebon have various religious, ethnic and cultural backgrounds. However, they can live harmoniously in such diversity. Cirebon is interesting to explore due to its abundant culture-based tourism. However, in the tourism industry, the process of commodification is inevitable as part of current development. Therefore, this study employed a qualitative method using historical, social, and cultural commodification approaches expected to provide a better overview and information regarding culture-based tourism in Cirebon. The commodification of culture allows cultural forms to be a tradable commodity. It changes culture as originally a social relationship into culture as an economic relationship. Thus, it is important to apply historical and social approaches in the study to determine the existence of cultural heritage. This encourages the researchers to further discover the extent to which commodification is implemented in the culture-based tourism industry in Cirebon, aiming to provide information to the public to give more attention as well as participate in preserving cultural heritage in the midst of the challenges of modern times. The results of this study show an overview of cultural tourism in Cirebon, in which various elements of society are expected to help preserve and maintain culture as self-identity.

Whose ethics of care? The geographies of live‐in elder care in China

AbstractReflecting on different theoretical premises within geographies of care, this paper develops their connections and responds to the normativity and universalism in care literature through conceptualising live‐in elder care (LEC). Considering the relationality of differential contributions to care, we propose a conceptualisation of multiple interrelated approaches by: (1) extending the critical frameworks of care to understand the broader frames of institution, market, and morality in mediating interpersonal connectedness of elder care; (2) thinking care relationally, we challenge the dominant conceptualisation of care and power as unidirectional flows and elder care relationships as a receiver–giver dyad; (3) emplacing care, we focus on the actual conditions of care through which ethics are assembled in their geo‐historical context; (4) treating care as grounded, we centre voices from both older people and LEC workers and how ethics of care are comprehended in the everyday rather than prescribed for commodified care. Our thematic analysis starts with a commodification process where LEC is negotiated in tensions; yet moving beyond arguments around systems of dominance and ideal ethics of care, findings show LEC also creates a space of care where LEC workers and older people constantly negotiate norms, boundaries, and care as a relational process. Conceptually, this paper recognises the role of power in shaping the market and intimate relationships of elder care by elaborating on the inequities of age, gender, and place (not just gender). Moving beyond critiques, this paper emphasises the entangled and relational nature of care as grounded in a series of everyday concerns and resistance, where ethics of difference are negotiated and a cultural‐historical configuration of care still perpetuates in its locale. Finally, this paper speaks to the active yet overlooked role of age and ageing in constructing an ethics of care.

A New Perspective in the Sociology of Health: The Health Capital

Bu makale, sağlığı, özellikle de son yıllarda sınırları giderek genişleyen sağlıkta deneyimlenen eşitsizliği, Fransız sosyolog Pierre Bourdieu’nün geliştirdiği kavramsal araçlarla ele alıyor. Makale, tıpkı ekonomik sermaye ya da kültürel sermaye gibi, sağlığın da özgün bir sermaye türü olarak kavramsallaştırılması mümkün mü sorusunu soruyor. Makale ilk olarak, sağlık sosyolojisinin ana hatlarına odaklanıp, Durkheim’dan Foucault’ya uzanan çizgide sağlığın nasıl ele alındığına açıklık getiriyor. Ardından da sağlık sosyolojisinin omurgasını teşkil eden üç ana araştırma alanına ışık tutuyor. Sosyolojinin temel olarak sağlığın toplumsal köklerine, sağlıktaki dizginlenemeyen metalaşma sürecine ve sağlığın iktidarla olan ilişkisine dair yürüttüğü araştırmaları örneklerle açıklıyor. Makalede üçüncü olarak, sağlık sosyolojisi külliyatına Pierre Bourdieu’nün geliştirdiği ilişkisel sosyoloji yaklaşımının yapabileceği katkılar tartışılıyor. Son olarak ise ilişkisel sosyolojinin merkezi kavramlarından biri olan sermayenin, özgün bir iktidar türü olarak sağlığı inceleyebilmek için sunabileceği imkanlara açıklık getiriliyor. Sağlık sermayesi, ekonomik sermayenin ve kültürel sermayenin dönüşmüş halidir; bedenin biyolojik varoluşunu kontrol edebilme kapasitesini, olası risklere karşı önceden önlem alma ayrıcalığını ve gerektiğinde nitelikli tedaviye ve uzman görüşüne ulaşabilme düzeyini ve hızını ifade eder. Böylesi bir yaklaşım, sağlık alanında muayene, tetkik, ameliyat, tedavi ve tavsiye biçiminde somutlaşan üretimin, toplumsal uzama dağılmasıyla oluşan eşitsizliğin ampirik olarak ölçülebilip gözlemlenebilmesini sağlar. Bu aynı zamanda, sağlığın hem ekonomik iktidardan bağımsız hem de yönetimselliğin dışında, özgün bir iktidar türü olarak yeniden düşünülmesine de mümkün kılar.

“There is a hell and heaven difference among faculties who are from quota and those who are non-quota”: under the veneer of the “New Middle Class” production of Indian public universities

The university is a highly politicized and fractious realm for students and academics. Amidst trade-offs between the processes of massification, democratization, commodification, and globalization, the question of transformation for sustainability has become crucial to the social good(s) of higher education. This paper considers academic citizenry within Indian public higher education — a context where the increase in the enrollment of first-generation students and female students, due to affirmative action policies, has not substantially translated into altering the composition of academic staff. Informed by a mixed-method study conducted in 2019 with the participation of academics and those in leadership positions at four higher education institutions, we found that the enactment of such policies was operationalized for the production of the “New Middle Class” by universities. Of concern is that neither the representation nor the participation of academics who are women, “lower” castes, or minorities meets the mark of just, inclusive institutions. Despite the rhetoric of inclusiveness and development, the implementation of related policies clothe subalterns with the veneer of the intellectual class, permitting access on condition that sociocultural identities are concealed, and the hegemonic status quo maintained. Terms such as “quality” and “equality” function as tools for social control rather than serving social justice, where assertions of caste identity and resistance are simultaneously repudiated and misrecognized.

Alteration of Hadith Functions in TikTok Social Media

This article categorized as a netnographic study that refers to uploads on the TikTok platform with various kinds of discussions in the name of the prophet's Hadits or Sunnah. Therefore, the three questions proposed are: 1) how does the Hadits in the TikTok experience a change in function? 2) How efficient is TikTok in conveying the prophet’s teachings? 3) What are the motivations that trigger users to upload content based on the prophet's Hadits? By conducting the content analysis of this study, it could be conclude that: 1) the Hadits which have spread on TikTok have changed their function, which originally served as a bayan, have now become certain tools for certain purposes, 2) in that narrow space, the prophet's Hadits could not be delivered comprehensively and completely because the facilities provided by TikTok could not accommodate all explanations so that siltation appears, 3) the wide range and the availability of features that support the transaction process contribute the creation of a massive commodification process. In addition, this paper also reviews the transfiguration of pretensions which are implied in the TikTok circulation chain. Some of these things denoted that the hadits circulating on the TikTok have problems that could not be ignored.

Commodification of Labor on the Instagram Account @menjadimanusia.id

@menjadimanusia.id is an alternative media and social platform for those who want to share and hear stories about life from various perspectives, and are expected to be a ladder to get a speck of hope for those who have problems in life. In this case, there is subtle exploitation of the audience who are already interested and feel facilitated by the @menjadimanusia.id site that they voluntarily share their concerns, as well as their personal stories for public consumption. This study aims to reveal the forms and processes of commodification experienced by the audiences who send their personal stories to the @menjadimanusia.id account. It uses a critical paradigm with a descriptive-qualitative approach through content analysis and interviews by developing political economy communication through the commodification of labor as a theoretical framework. The findings suggested that the commodification occurs in the content production process by the @menjadimanusia.id account which places the audience's as the main source of the content. The form of commodification experienced by the audience is the exploitation of content owners and unpaid digital labor.

New emerging peasantry and local food: Participatory Guarantee Systems as a strategy to re-localise and re-socialise the organic food quality. A theoretical analysis

Despite a farewell to peasants was predicted by modernisation theorists, nowadays we are witnessing a re-emergence of the peasant model; this new direction is today interpreted as a search of independence from the centrifugal thrust of the agro-industrial sector. This paper, with a theoretical approach and an analysis of the relevant bibliography, links the new emerging peasantry to the dynamics which are changing the organisation of the markets through, for instance, the construction of new food circuits or changes in consumers’ behaviour. These elements are framing agriculture in a process of transition in which the primary sector have to face new challenges. Considering that both industrial agriculture and peasant agriculture are trying to cope with new demands by reorganising themselves, this work presents the Participatory Guarantee Systems as a peasants’ tool to re-socialise quality within the organic markets and bring back food to a local dimension, moving it away from the processes of commodification.

Worker Commodification and Human Resource Strategies in GIG Economy Era (Case Study in AMEG.TV, Malang, East Java, Indonesia)

Human resources are company assets that must be managed and developed, because indirectly workers can affect the quality of company performance. The process of worker commodification is a form of company in utilizing the skills and abilities of workers to get the maximum benefit. This research uses a qualitative approach with a case study method. This research reveals that the concept of media convergence adopted by Arema Media Group has an impact on the management of the company under its coverage. In one of the Arema Media group companies, Ameg.tv, there is a practice of commodification of workers in the form of additional working hours, double duty, chasing targets, and adaptation. Ameg.tv in human resource management in the GIG Economy era must understand the characteristics of employees in order to map the positions, duties, and responsibilities of employees to achieve Ameg.tv targets in facing the challenges of media convergence.

Showing off your best assets: Rethinking commodification in the online creator economy

This theoretical paper critically explores digital labour in the online creator econo-my using OnlyFans sex workers as its core example. It critiques the description of the exploitation of self and embodiment in this work as a process of commodifica-tion. By reframing this activity in terms of human capital appreciation and by contrasting the specific economic logic of commodities and assets, it proposes in-stead the framework of assetisation to explain the economics of labour in this sec-tor. It then places online creator labour in a wider economic context to explore the greater utility of this move away from understanding such work as commodifica-tion.

Toward “Total Freedom”: Black Ecologies of Land, Labor, and Livelihoods in the Mississippi Delta

We ground this article in the uneven geographies of the Mississippi Delta, a region constructed at the intersection of agro-environmental racism and plantation violence, nutrient-rich soil, and dynamic Black geographies. The processes of containment, dispossession, and commodification of life and land were essential to the construction of the region following a particular agricultural and racial development trajectory dominated by what Clyde Woods calls the Plantation Bloc. And yet, strategies and struggles to make life against and outside of these dynamics also took hold of the region. We reconceptualize the Mississippi Black Freedom Movement and the overlapping struggles for land, housing, healthcare, and new forms of work as movements against agro-environmental racism and the making of a place-based environmental justice rooted in Black ecologies. Drawing on Black and abolition ecologies we trace connections across rural Black organizing in cooperative, farm, and catfish processing communities in the Mississippi Delta. By organizing along modes of collective flourishing and against threats to daily life, these movements provide an alternative trajectory to agro-environmental racism and sought to create a place of stewardship and co-operation.

Towards the engagement economy: interconnected processes of commodification on YouTube

A dominant way for digital platforms to generate revenue has been through the sale of audiences to advertisers encapsulated by the idea of the attention economy. This model has been challenged in recent years due to competitive and political pressures on platforms. In this paper, we use YouTube as a case to understand how processes of commodification are changing on digital platforms. We demonstrate that YouTube furthers the commodification of content, audiences and creative labour by cultivating commercial interactions, standardising exchange mechanisms and constructing systems of trust. The platform enables producers and retailers to sell digital and physical goods to users, advertisers to capture audiences’ interest and brands to establish partnerships with producers. In sum, we show how YouTube not only monetises attention but commodifies all forms of engagement through its marketplaces with consequences for the precarity of users and producers on the platform.

Education as a commodity? (a sketch of sociological expertise)

The article reveals the problematic aspects of the transformation processes of education into a commodity. Education is understood as a social practice and as a social institution. Carrying out a systematic analysis of these processes, the author demonstrates both systemic social, societal threats and (often underestimated) "pitfalls" generated by these processes, as well as possible limitations and even limits of their actualization and deployment. This analysis and demonstration is carried out in the technique of theoretical sociological expertise. The problem of sociology's partial disregard for the commodification of education and the probable prospects and problems arising from this are analyzed. It is emphasized that the uncritical perception of the processes of commodification of education by sociology, especially on the periphery of global neoliberal capitalism, is in itself a threat to education, in particular in the form of a change in the very nature of education as a phenomenon, its evolution from a phenomenon, first of all, a sociocultural phenomenon into a phenomenon primarily economic. Various arguments are given and analyzed in relation to the processes of commodification of education, each of which is named in the article by the name of a sociologist whose analysis is closest to the argument put forward. “Five big” arguments and “seven small” ones are formulated. In their presentation the “dark sides” of the processes of commodification and neoliberalization of education are analyzed in detail. Attention is focused on the analysis of how education is involved in interaction with other social institutions and phenomena, as well as on what effects and post-effects can be generated as a result of education commodification processes. It is emphasized that in this context, the most important plot is the connection between education as a phenomenon and freedom as a social construct – at the micro level, as well as with the social order – at the macro level. A number of conclusions are formulated about such a property of education as autonomy, about its socio-cultural characteristics and about the threats of the market.