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Call for Papers

Special Issue on Alternative Economies: Journal of Macromarketing, 2017

Mario Campana¹, Andreas Chatzidakis² and Mikko Laamanen3*
Special Issue Editors

Alternative economies represent an essential part of “cultures of resistance” (Williams 2005) to the increasing commodification of social life and the monolithic nature of global capitalism. For authors such as Gibson-Graham (2006) and Williams (2005), dominant (capitalist) readings of the economy overemphasize profit-motivated and monetized market exchanges. Yet, various alternative spheres of economic activity exist where exchange is not necessarily monetized and/or underpinned by motivations for profit.

Alternative economies constitute responses to the precarious conditions in everyday lives of individuals, and their lack of access to and scarcity of resources and competences (Day 2005; Williams 2005). Alternative economic models rest on shared commitments to minimize economic domination and exploitation and thereby alleviate the subordinated position of local subjects (Day 2005; Gibson-Graham 2006). Specifically, alternative economies have (re-) merged in local communities where various groups and movement actors work towards localized development and are driven by their hope to improve human conditions. These activities are enacted in different type of transactions, labor, and economic enterprises. They are ometimes ground in objection to, but also run parallel with institutionalized markets under such nomenclature as “social and solidarity economy,” “sharing economy,” and “neighborhood work” Day 2005; Gibson-Graham 2006).

Recently, the marketing field has shown increasing interest in such alternative forms of exchange and marketplaces. Issues addressed include the crisis of post-industrialism (Varey 2011) and the political construction of marketing systems (Arndt 1981; Layton 2009). Macromarketing researchers in particular have been studying the impacts of exchange on relational parties and their surroundings (Laczniak and Murphy 2008), responses to consumer society, such as anticonsumption (Chatzidakis and Lee 2013), social entrepreneurship and informal exchange systems (Viswanathan et al. 2014), and alternative forms of trade organizations (Geiger-Oneto and Arnould 2011; Golding 2009). Consumer research also has tackled collaborative forms of consumption cf. Botsman and Rodgers 2010) such as access-based forms of consumption (Bardhi and Eckhardt 2012), sharing (Belk 2010), the fluidity of activity such as co-creation and prosumption (Arvidsson 2008; Ritzer and Jurgeson 2010), and creation of heterotopias (Chatzidakis et al. 2012; North 1999). Nonetheless, current understandings of alternative economies remain fragmented leaving larger scale questions about he intersections and interrelations of alternative economy movements largely underexplored and undertheorized.

Correspondingly, questions around new discourses of economy and economic possibility, the cultivation of noncapitalist subjectivities, and alternative forms of political and marketplace participation remain presently underdeveloped. In the light of our limited understanding of these phenomena and how they play out in real life, we invite papers that specifically examine alternative economies both conceptually and empirically. Contributions are invited on (but not limited to) the following topics:

• Variety of alternative economies: conceptualizations, practices, and technologies of exchange
• Alternative economies and sustainability (e.g. anti-consumption, growth v. de-growth)
• Local exchange in sharing / barter networks, neighborhood work, and complementary currencies
• Alternative virtual marketplaces
• Implications of alternative economies to individuals, localities, markets, and society
• Alternative economies, place and space
• Agency and structure of alternative economies
• Interaction between traditional commercial markets, political systems, and alternative local provision
• Variation between alternative economies in developed and developing countries
• Organizations in alternative economies (e.g. trade organizations such as fair trade and local organizations such as LETS networks and time banks)
• Regulation in and of alternative economies
• Public policy implications of alternative economies
• Historical perspectives on alternative economies (e.g. utopian communities and literature in 19th century U.S.)
• Visualization of alternative economies

Manuscripts must be received no later than August 31, 2015, and the special issue tentatively will be published in March 2017. Please submit completed manuscripts to the Journal’s manuscript submission site, and indicate that your paper is intended for this special issue. Manuscripts guidelines are available at . Early expressions of interest and inquiries can be directed to the special issue editors: Mario Campana (Mario.Campana.1@cass.city.ac.uk), Andreas Chatzidakis (Andreas.Chatzidakis@rhul.ac.uk), and Mikko Laamanen (mikko.laamanen@hanken.fi).

Full information available at

Selected Bibliography

Arndt, Johan (1981), “The Political Economy of Marketing Systems: Reviving the Institutional Approach,” Journal of Macromarketing, 1 (Fall), 36-47.

Arvidsson, Adam (2008), “Ethical Economy of Customer Coproduction,” Journal of Macromarketing, 28 (4), 326-38.

Bardhi, Fleura and Giana M. Eckhardt (2012), “Access-Based Consumption: The Case of Car Sharing,” Journal of Consumer Research, 39 (4), 881-98.

Belk, Russell (2010), “Sharing,” Journal of Consumer Research, 36 (5), 715-34.

Botsman, Rachel and Roo Rodgers (2010), What’s Mine is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption. New York: HarperCollins.

Chatzidakis, Andreas, Pauline Maclaran, and Alan Bradshaw (2012), “Heterotopian Space and the Utopics of Ethical and Green Consumption,” Journal of Marketing Management, 28(3-4), 494–515.

Chatzidakis, Andreas and Michael S. W. Lee (2013), “Anti-Consumption as the Study of Reasons Against,” Journal of Macromarketing, 33 (3), 190-203.

Day, Richard J. F. (2005), Gramsci is Dead: Anarchist Currents in the Newest Social Movements. London: Pluto Press.

Geiger-Oneto, Stephanie and Eric J. Arnould (2011), “Alternative Trade Organization and Subjective Quality of Life: The Case of Latin American Coffee Producers,” Journal of Macromarketing, 31 (3), 276–90.

Gibson-Graham, J. K. (2006), The End of Capitalism (As We Knew It): A Feminist Critique of Political Economy. First University of Minnesota Press edition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Golding, Kirsty Michelle (2009), “Fair Trade’s Dual Aspect: The Communications Challenge of Fair Trade Marketing,” Journal of Macromarketing, 29 (2), 160-71

Laczniak, Gene R. and Patrick E. Murphy (2008), “Distributive Justice: Pressing Questions, Emerging Directions, and the Promise of Rawlsian Analysis,” Journal of Macromarketing, 28 (1), 5-11.

Layton, Roger (2009), “On Economic Growth, Marketing Systems, and the Quality of Life,” Journal of Macromarketing, 29 (4), 349-62.

North, Peter (1999), “Explorations in Heterotopia: Local Exchange Trading Schemes (LETS) and the Micropolitics of Money and Livelihood,” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 17 (1), 69–86.

Ritzer, George and Nathan Jurgeson (2010), “Production, Consumption, Prosumption. The Nature of Capitalism in the Age of the Digital ‘Prosumer,’” Journal of Consumer Culture, 10 (1), 13-36.

Seyfang, Gill and Noel Longhurst (2013), “Growing Green Money? Mapping Community Currencies for Sustainable Development,” Ecological Economics, 86, 65-77.

Varey, Richard J. (2013), “Marketing in the Flourishing Society Megatrend,” Journal of Macromarketing, 33(4), 354–368.

Viswanathan, Madhu, Raj Echambadi, Srinivas Venugopal, and Srinivas Sridharan (2014), “Subsistence Entrepreneurship, Value Creation, and Community Exchange Systems: A Social Capital Explanation,” Journal of Macromarketing, 34(2), 213–26.

White, J. Richard and Collin C. Williams (2012), “Escaping Capitalist Hegemony: Rereading Western Economies”, in The Accumulation of Freedom – Writings on Anarchist Economics, Deric Shannon, Nocella A. Anthony, and John Asimakopoulos, eds. Edinburgh: AK Press, 117-38.

Williams, Colin C. (2005), A Commodified World?: Mapping the Limits of Capitalism. London: Zed Books.

¹City University London, United Kingdom

²Royal Holloway University of London, United Kingdom

³Hanken School of Economics, Finland

^*Names in alphabetical order

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