Market devices

Reference & Research Book News, May, 2008

Market devices.

Ed. by Michel Callon et al.

Blackwell Publishing

2007

318 pages

$34.95

Paperback

Sociological review monographs

HF5414

Market devices, in the words of editors Callon (Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation, Ecole des Mines de Paris, France), Millo (London School of Economics and Political Science, UK), Muniesa (Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation), are "the material and discursive assemblages that intervene in the construction of markets." They include a wide array of objects such as analytical techniques, pricing models, purchase settings, merchandising tools, trading protocols, and aggregate indicators. The editors present 13 papers examining market devices as part of the pragmatic turn in the sociological study of markets and economic activities. Of general concern is the part played by market devices in configuring economic calculative capacities and in qualifying market objects. Specific topics include an exploration of the historical practice of financial analysis, a case study of the economic encounters between wholesalers and retailers in Swedish food distribution in the late 1940s, an ethnographic study of choice in supermarkets, analysis of some features of the focus group as an economic research device, examination of the emergence of a market for quotas in Norwegian fisheries, and a study of the economic qualification of products in Swedish markets for subsidized pharmaceuticals.

([c]20082005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR)