The Commodity and Its Aftermarkets: Products as Unfinished Business

IF 7.2 1区 经济学 Q1 ECONOMICS Economic Geography Pub Date : 2021-08-08 DOI:10.1080/00130095.2021.1939007
Andrew Warren, Chrissie Gibson
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引用次数: 6

Abstract

abstract Capitalist commodities have a necessary but overlooked accompaniment: aftermarkets. Aftermarkets are conventionally understood as secondary commercial transactions linked to commodity consumption and circulation. Yet for many products with accelerating design complexity, tighter regulation, growing debt financing, safety, and sustainability concerns, the action is in aftermarkets. Following feminist economic geography’s recognition of betweenness and messiness, we theorize commodities and their aftermarkets beyond the production-consumption binary. Three themes emerge. First, purchased commodities are far from finished. Commodification remains ongoing after exchange, with actors tussling over value extraction. Second, beyond transactional conceptions, aftermarkets are the loci of ongoing social relations, especially for products essential to life opportunities. Manufacturers manipulate time horizons, locking consumers into relationships while encouraging subsequent sales and preconfiguring second-hand aftermarkets. Third, commodities are imbricated in multidirectional power geometries, embodying informational, technological, financial, and labor relations that evolve in everyday circulation, use, decay, and waste. We illustrate via automobiles and their aftermarkets, visiting spaces at the production-consumption interface. Cars are increasingly embedded with digital technologies and noninterchangeable components, enabling firms to coordinate aftermarkets, marginalize independent operators, harvest driver information, and predict profits. Meanwhile, car dependencies among vulnerable households are exploited. Inequalities and conflicts unfurl between competing capitalist interests, regulators, and households across the income spectrum. Mediating social relations are predatory finance, calculative designs, data platforms, and technological rents. Commodities, we conclude, are unfinished. Aftermarkets must figure more prominently in economic geography, as important arenas of value creation suffused with uneven social relations.
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商品及其售后市场:未完成的业务
资本主义商品有一个必要但被忽视的伴生物:售后市场。售后市场通常被理解为与商品消费和流通有关的二级商业交易。然而,对于许多设计日益复杂、监管日益严格、债务融资日益增多、安全性和可持续性问题日益严重的产品来说,它们的行动发生在售后市场。遵循女性主义经济地理学对中间性和杂乱性的认识,我们将商品及其后市场理论化,超越生产-消费二元。出现了三个主题。首先,购买的商品远未完成。交易结束后,商品商品化仍在继续,各方在价值提取问题上争执不休。其次,在交易概念之外,售后市场是持续的社会关系的场所,特别是对生活机会至关重要的产品。制造商操纵时间范围,将消费者锁定在关系中,同时鼓励后续销售,并预先配置二手售后市场。第三,商品是多向权力几何结构,体现了在日常流通、使用、腐烂和浪费中演变的信息、技术、金融和劳动关系。我们通过汽车及其售后市场来说明,参观生产-消费界面的空间。汽车越来越多地嵌入了数字技术和不可互换的部件,使公司能够协调售后市场,边缘化独立运营商,收集驾驶员信息,并预测利润。与此同时,弱势家庭对汽车的依赖也被利用了。不平等和冲突在资本主义利益、监管机构和不同收入阶层的家庭之间展开。调解社会关系的是掠夺性金融、计算式设计、数据平台和技术租金。我们的结论是,商品是未完成的。售后市场作为价值创造的重要领域,充斥着不平衡的社会关系,必须在经济地理中占据更突出的位置。
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来源期刊
Economic Geography
Economic Geography Multiple-
CiteScore
9.70
自引率
2.90%
发文量
0
期刊介绍: Economic Geography is a peer-reviewed journal dedicated to publishing original research that advances the field of economic geography. Their goal is to publish high-quality studies that are both theoretically robust and grounded in empirical evidence, contributing to our understanding of the geographic factors and consequences of economic processes. It welcome submissions on a wide range of topics that provide primary evidence for significant theoretical interventions, offering key insights into important economic, social, development, and environmental issues. To ensure the highest quality publications, all submissions undergo a rigorous peer-review process with at least three external referees and an editor. Economic Geography has been owned by Clark University since 1925 and plays a central role in supporting the global activities of the field, providing publications and other forms of scholarly support. The journal is published five times a year in January, March, June, August, and November.
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