Commoditization

Abstract: For the economist, commodities simply are. That is, certain things and rights to things are produced, exist, and can be seen to circulate through the economic system as they are being exchanged for other things, usually in exchange for money. This view, of course, frames the commonsensical definition of a commodity: an item with use value that also has exchange value. I shall, for the moment, accept this definition, which should suffice for raising certain preliminary issues, and I shall expand on it as the argument warrants. From a cultural perspective, the production of commodities is also a cultural and cognitive process: commodities must be not only produced materially as things, but also culturally marked as being a certain kind of thing. Out of the total range of things available in a society, only some of them are considered appropriate for marking as commodities. Moreover, the same thing may be treated as a commodity at one time and not at another. And finally, the same thing may, at the same time, be seen as a commodity by one person and as something else by another. Such shifts and differences in whether and when a thing is a commodity reveal a moral economy that stands behind the objective economy of visible transactions.

Abstract: Part 1 An actor-oriented paradigm: introduction, Norman Long from paradigm lost to paradism regained? the case for an actor-oriented sociology of development, Norman Long. Part 2 The research process: a research journey on actors, concepts and the text, Pieter de Vries plunging into the garlic methodological issues and challenges, Gabriel Torres the engagement of researcher and local actors in the construction of case studies and research themes - exploring methods of restudy, Van Seur. Part 3 New perspectives on old problems: goods, knowledge and beer - the methodological significance of situational analysis and discourse, Andrew Long identity, networks and space - new dimensions in the study of small-scale enterprise and commoditization, Gerard Verschoor local organization as organizing practices - the Mexican "ejido" revisited, Monique Nuijten. Part 4 Theoretical windows on development intervention the dynamics of knowledge interfaces between bureaucrats and peasants, Alberto Arce and Norman Long the poverty of practice - gender, power and intervention from an actor-oriented perspective, Magdalena Villarreal conclusion, Norman Long.

Abstract: Although language can always be analyzed as a commodity, its salience as a resource with exchange value has increased with the growing importance of language in the globalized new economy under the political economic conditions of late capitalism. This review summarizes how and in which ways those conditions have a commodifying effect on language and focuses on contemporary tensions between ideologies and practices of language in the shift from modernity to late modernity. It describes some of these tensions in key sites: tourism, marketing, language teaching, translation, communications (especially call centers), and performance art.