Making the ‘handmade’ bike and trying to make a living: market objects,field-configuring events and some limits to market making |
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Authors: | Benjamin D Brewer |
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Institution: | Department of Sociology and Anthropology, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA, USA |
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Abstract: | In line with growing interest in craft and maker economies, I examine the resurgence of handmade bicycle fabricators (“framebuilders”) in the U.S. since the early 2000s. I provide an account of one of the driving elements of this framebuilding renaissance, the North American Handmade Bicycle Show, considered as a “field-configuring event” through – and around – which forms of market-making and market object stabilization processes were achieved. I focus in particular on the way in which the “handmade bike” as a market object was stabilized and defined. Expanding on the “markets as practice” literature, I take up a larger concern with how these market-making and field-configuring dynamics connect to the material position of those within the field and their pursuit of livelihood. I find that, paradoxically, the particular successful stabilization of the “handmade” bicycle achieved around the show was difficult to sustain as a business model for many framebuilders. |
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Keywords: | Economic sociology market studies market making craft economy field-configuring events bicycle history |
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