With a little help from my friends

Relational work in leisure-related enterprising

Datos Bibliográficos

ID3385963
AutoresErika Andersson Cederholm (0000-0002-8742-8901, Lund University), Malin Akerstrom (0000-0002-9780-7569, Lund University)
Año2016
Volumen64
Número4
Páginas748-765
Fecha de publicación2016-04-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Sociological Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0038-0261 • E-ISSN: 1467-954X
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1111/1467-954x.12377
OpenAlexW2346213247
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas14
Referencias citadas33

The present article analyses the indistinct boundaries between formal and informal economic exchanges, with a focus on friendship and work relations. To illustrate these intersections, we present a study of Swedish lifestyle entrepreneurs who run small-scale horse-related enterprises. The specific characteristics of this form of business – in which the horse farm owners/operators, customers, employees and voluntary workers share a leisure interest in horses and participate in the everyday work on the farm – provide the foundation for an economic environment where personal favour exchanges and a gift economy are intertwined with a market economy. Drawing on Viviana Zelizer's notion of ‘relational work’, applied in a context where the gift economy is based on individual leisure interests and leisure-based friendship, the present analysis focuses on how relationships, transactions and forms of repayments are constantly negotiated along a continuum between work-oriented friendship and friendly work relations. The empirical illustrations demonstrate the limitations of the notion of boundary work often employed in studies of relational work – which emphasizes boundary definition. In contrast, it seems that relational work may also involve practices that maintain indistinct boundaries between different types of relationships, thus sustaining tension between a formal and informal economy

Business · Context (archaeology) · Economic growth · Economics · Friendship · Informal sector · Political science · Public relations · Social science · Sociology · Work (physics) · Diverse Aspects of Tourism Research · Engineering · Marketing · Psychology · Recreation, Leisure, Wilderness Management · Sharing Economy and Platforms · Social Psychology