Making the 'handmade' bike and trying to make a living

Market Objects, Field-Configuring Events and Some Limits to Market Making

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2166052
AutoresBenjamin D Brewer (0000-0003-0024-7380, James Madison University, autor correspondente)
Ano2017
Volume20
Fascículo6
Páginas523-538
Data de publicação2017-11-02
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoConsumption Markets & Culture (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1025-3866 • E-ISSN: 1477-223X
EditoraInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/10253866.2017.1331646
OpenAlexW2626926983
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas4
Referências citadas22

In line with growing interest in craft and maker economies, I examine the resurgence of handmade bicycle fabricators (“framebuilders”) in the U.S. since the early 2000s. I provide an account of one of the driving elements of this framebuilding renaissance, the North American Handmade Bicycle Show, considered as a “field-configuring event” through – and around – which forms of market-making and market object stabilization processes were achieved. I focus in particular on the way in which the “handmade bike” as a market object was stabilized and defined. Expanding on the “markets as practice” literature, I take up a larger concern with how these market-making and field-configuring dynamics connect to the material position of those within the field and their pursuit of livelihood. I find that, paradoxically, the particular successful stabilization of the “handmade” bicycle achieved around the show was difficult to sustain as a business model for many framebuilders

Advertising · Business · Field (mathematics · Crafts, Textile, and Design · Cultural Industries and Urban Development · Fashion and Cultural Textiles · Marketing