The Little Tools project presents first paper in The Good Economy Working Paper Series

The first paper in the new working paper series is titled "From Commodification to Co-modification", written by Professor Kristin Asdal, leader of the Little Tools project.

Abstract

The present paper analyses innovation strategies employed to transform the Atlantic cod into a farmed species. The paper teases out tensions between different approaches to the study of value and valuation: recent contributions in economic sociology arguing that we need to grasp how actors socially construct values, versus Marxist-oriented contributions that prefer to trace how life itself has become the source of value and a productive force. The paper investigates ways to combine these resources in order to include both the materiality of objects and the meaning-construction work involved. In trying this out, the paper suggests a conceptual toolbox including the notions co-modification and biocapitalization. Moreover, the paper argues for the need to explore the means; the little tools by which values are enacted and analyses innovation strategies (and policy-documents more broadly) as key examples of such little tools.
 

Download the paper here (pdf).

Published Oct. 14, 2018 11:07 PM - Last modified Oct. 25, 2018 12:07 PM