Search Results (4)

In this article, we explore the importance of Portuguese independent record stores by highlighting their role as catalysts of scenes and sociabilities, specifically in the major cities of Lisbon and Porto. We examine how these stores can be understood not only as spaces of consumption, but also as places where rituals are enacted and communities of taste are built. We focus on several levels of analysis: the emergence of a new economic rationale based on curation and collecting, the vinyl revival and the stores’ complex relationship with the technological and digital revolution. The methodology used is ethnographic analysis, with observations carried out in ten stores, complemented by interviews with owners and customers. We demonstrate that record stores began to offer not only objects for purchase, but experiences associated with cultural objects and new cultural practices based on the valorization of the object and craftsmanship, as well as the phenomenon of curation in the cultural world. We then analyse independent record stores as spaces of resistance against the dematerialization of music. The emergence of a new aspirational economy is explored, based on curation and on being in the present, rebuffing the Veblenian rationale of ostentation. In music scenes, curation demands legitimacy, so in the independent record stores studied, curation strategies are developed on three levels: spatial, individual and local. In the third section, we examine independent record stores as spaces of rituals because they combine the existence of a totem, the relevance of a space loaded with symbolic density and the presence of social actors who carry out the rituals in this symbolic space—that is, social actors with subcultural capital in the music scene(s). In the last section, we dissect the relationship between independent record stores and their local context, exploring issues of local curation, in particular, the legitimacy associated with belonging to a specific place. Full article

The role of habits in influencing transportation behaviour is acknowledged in many studies. However, most of these analyses draw on a narrow perspective of habits. In this paper, we adopt a reversed perspective regarding the interplay between habits and rationality. The insightfulness of this perspective is illustrated with the findings of two empirical studies on urban transportation. This paper shows that the underlying structure (i.e., the “genotype”) behind the phenotypic manifestation of a habit is essential to grasp for getting a better understanding of the role played by habits in explaining car use. The framework of habitual practices is then put forward in discussing the results. Its rationale is to provide a characterisation of the interconnected elements that make and shape the transportation practices, together with important aspects regarding how they are formed and sustained over time. Adequately picturing both constituent elements as well as dynamic aspects is crucial for explaining the strength of habitual practices and thus car dependence. In doing so, the framework of habitual practices could thus well be of help for policy-makers in reflecting on the design of efficient and innovative interventions for the transition towards more sustainable transportation behaviours. Full article

Classical economists from Adam Smith to Thomas Malthus and to Karl Marx have considered the importance of direct interdependence and direct interactions for the economy. This was even more the case for original institutionalist thinkers such as Thorstein Veblen, John Commons, and Clarence Ayres. In their writings, direct interdependence, interactions (or transactions) among agents, with all beneficial and with all problematic consequences, took center stage in economic analysis. Why, for instance, do people adhere to a particular new fashion or trend? Because others do, after eminent people, wealthy people, the “leisure class” (T. Veblen), have made it a symbol for status. The new fashion, however, ceases to serve as such a symbol once too many people follow it. The constant effort put into following trends and adopting fashion turns out to be a social dilemma, driven by Veblenian instincts, such as invidious distinction in predatory societies, conspicuous consumption and emulation. [...] Full article

We investigate aspects of institutional change in an evolutionary game-theoretic framework, in principle focusing on problems of coordination in groups when new solutions to a problem become available. In an evolutionary game with an underlying dilemma structure, we let a number of new strategies become gradually available to the agents. The dilemma structure of the situation is not changed by these. Older strategies offer a lesser payoff than newly available ones. The problem that agents have to solve for realizing improved results is, therefore, to coordinate on newly available strategies. Strategies are taken to represent institutions; the coordination on a new strategy by agents, hence, represents a change in the institutional framework of a group. The simulations we run show a stable pattern regarding such institutional changes. A number of institutions are found to coexist, with the specific number depending on the relation of payoffs achievable through the coordination of different strategies. Usually, the strategies leading to the highest possible payoff are not among these. This can be taken to reflect the heterogeneity of rules in larger groups, with different subgroups showing different behavior patterns. Full article