Performance Circuits in the Marketplace*

Frederick F. Wherry

Politics & Society, 2012, vol. 40, issue 2, 203-221

Abstract: This paper introduces the concept of performance circuits as a means for understanding economic transactions. The concept of the performance circuits emphasizes the script-like sequences and the existing cultural narratives that enable the believable performances of those scripts. The concept of performance circuits allows for Zelizer’s concept of relational work to be applied in ethnographic studies of economic life, decomposing the constituent parts that enable the accomplishment of value in the marketplace. The paper opens with a dramaturgical performance at the United States Federal Reserve and then turns to microstudies of handicraft production, modern art markets, and neighborhood branding to demonstrate how one can study market dramas unfolding, sometimes unremarkably, emotions being generated, and background representations making loosely scripted actions understandable.

Keywords: dramaturgy; economic sociology; relational work; scripts; performance circuits (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0032329212441598 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:polsoc:v:40:y:2012:i:2:p:203-221

DOI: 10.1177/0032329212441598

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Politics & Society
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().