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About the conference

Since its first meeting in 2010, the Interdisciplinary Market Studies Workshop has become one of the main meeting places for scholars from sociology, organization studies, marketing, political science, history and geography interested in social studies of markets.

The 2021 Interdisciplinary Market Studies Workshop [2-4 June] 2021 will be held entirely on line.   

The Theme: ‘Flowing Markets’

The 6th IMSW sets out to explore markets through the prism of goods, people and money circulation. The acceleration and dematerialization of flows through digitization and commodification, the intense urbanization at the heart of globalization, the emergence of platform economies and ‘uberization’ of work – these are just some of the transformations of contemporary markets. At the same time, facing environmental overflows and the critique of global capitalism, our changing social and political agenda aims to regulate, re-territorialize or even decrease the flows of goods and materials, a project of reorganizing markets around sustainable goals. 

In theoretical terms, the idea of circulation reflects classical issues such as valuation, (re-)qualification, match making, market boundaries (exchange spheres), processes of segmentation. Empirically, it speaks to financial markets, logistics activities, urban economies, entrepreneurship or digital work, big data management, market and non-market boundaries, and so forth… 

For its 6th meeting, the IMSW will again bring together multidisciplinary social science scholars to present, discuss, and debate their research on market societies and their transformations. A PhD market studies workshop will be organized on the first day.