Reading :: Market Devices

 Market Devices

Edited by Michel Callon, Yuval Milo, and Fabian Muniesa

I’ve been aware of this 2007 collection, but have not been motivated to read it until recently, when thinking about how startups attempt to define markets. Whereas established markets often seem like they are “out there,” existing and waiting to be found, from the viewpoint of a tech startup, a market often seems like something that one must construct — see also Schumpeter, who mentions markets as one of the new combinations entrepreneurs produce. With this background, I wanted to dip into what Michel Callon, whose work was foundational to actor-network theory, and similar theorists had to say about markets.

The book starts with Muniesa, Milo, & Callon’s “An introduction to market devices,” in which the authors note “the development of a ‘pragmatic turn’ in the study of markets and economic activities in general” (p.1), including regimes of worth and valuation (they mention Boltanski & Thevenot here) and a range of other investigations into materiality and economics. It’s within this stream of research that the collection fits. The collection is built around “the notion of a ‘market device’ — a simple way of referring to the material and discursive assemblages that intervene in the construction of markets” (p.3). They see these market devices as distributing agencies as the result of compound agencements (from Deleuze & Guattari, typically translated as “assemblage”) (p.3). Here, “the subject is not external to the device. In other words, subjectivity is enacted in a device” (p.3). They link this to the ANT “notion of ‘socio-technical device,’” which “emphasizes the distribution of agency and with which materiality comes to the forefront” (pp.3-4). Thus, “an economic agencement is, in a broadest sense, one that renders things, behaviors and processes economic,” where “economic” is “the outcome of a process of ‘economization,’ a process that is historical, contingent, and disputable” (p.4). The book’s contributions thus focus on market devices: analyses of analysts’ reports, a purchasing center, merchandising techniques, choice in supermarkets, focus groups, consumer tests, quotas on fishing, financial derivatives, classification schemes, global prices via a mercantile exchange, derivatives contracts, and credit scoring. 

The contributions to the collection are interesting, but I’ll highlight just one. Benuza and Garud’s “Calculators, lemmings, or frame-makers? The intermediary role of securities analysts” uses grounded theory and content analysis to examine analysts’ reports. They conclude that “Markets are social, we contend, because calculations are social” (p.33). In extreme uncertainty, analysts develop “calculation frames,” which “include categorizations, analogies and the selection of key dimensions of merit” (p.35). These remind me of the market sizing attempts that startups make in their early decks.

Although I’ve only highlighted one chapter, the others are worth reading, especially if you’re interested in examining markets and market economics from a pragmatist lens.