[Air-L] CFP: Commodified Relationships: The Politics of Intimacy and Resistance (4S Open Panel)

[Yvonne Eadon]

Dear AoIR colleagues,

Please consider submitting an abstract to our 4S Open Panel, "Commodified
Relationships: The Politics of Intimacy and Resistance." The conference
will take place in Toronto, October 6-9, and there will be opportunities
for remote participation as well.

The call for papers is as follows:

As a result of the devastation wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic, many newly
under- and unemployed individuals have turned to Multi-Level Marketing
companies (MLMs), which offer tempting rewards and the illusion of easy
success. By forcing “independent contractors” to recruit friends and
family, the MLM business model operates under an even more remorseless form
of the “exploit or be exploited” capitalistic maxim, but these notorious
ventures are only one example of the commodification of our social
relationships.

This panel will broadly address the ways personal relationships can be
commodified, questioning the neoliberal economics and politics that promote
the exploitation of our social lives. Some areas to consider include:
hierarchies of friendship, often among women, within MLMs; recruitment and
reward systems in cults and fundamentalist religious sects; social media
and the quantification of friendship; the parasocial performance of
intimacy within “influencer” culture; biotechnology companies gathering and
selling genetic data; and other areas of study. When we have “good
relations” with one another, how soon before those relations are mined for
their commodity value? And how might awareness of this cycle allow
individuals and communities to resist in creative, generative ways that
foster even deeper connections?

We welcome submissions that address topics from a variety of theoretical
perspectives, including, but not limited to, social epistemology, feminist
and queer STS, information studies, critical racial and economic justice,
Indigenous ways of knowing, and disability studies. In bringing varied
perspectives on commodified relationships into conversation with one
another, this panel will support resistance through the formation of
critical networks vigilantly aware of their potential for exploitation.

Keywords: Multi-level marketing, commodification, human relationships,
intimacy, political economy, resistance, economic justice.

Warm regards,

Yvonne M. Eadon, UCLA
Carlin Soos, UCLA


-- 
Yvonne M. Eadon, MLIS
Information Studies Doctoral Candidate
UCLA
She/ her