CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2013
| Author | Mihailescu, Mihail Vintila |
|---|---|
| Title | On the crossroad of Self, Market, and Society - A (n)etnography of Freecycle |
| Summary | Freecycle is a borderline social network, in-between virtual and “real”, personal interactions and object circulation. It has started as a non-profit ecologic-minded organization in 2003, in Tucson, USA and the concept has since spread to over 85 countries, with 8 million members around the world organized in 4,903 local “communities”. The main purpose is to use objects for as long as possible by changing the owner, thus “changing the world one gift at a time”. The objects circulating via these networks and the reasons behind them are extremely diverse. As such, Freecycle can be considered a crossroad of social constructions and meanings much beyond just the virtual-real inbetweenness. It embeds the “social life of things” (Appadurai, 1986) as they move between domestic space and market, profit, need and/or pleasure-driven, mixing the logic of gift and exchange, bridging identity and sociability in emerging “communi ties”.The aim of the present project is to provide an accurate ethnography of these practices, the kind of social networks they are building, and the personal meanings they display. All the data obtained will be interpreted referring to the peculiarities of the Romanian post-socialist society and its longue durée, with a focus on the still existing preserving behavior and kin limited exchange practices. |
| Supervisor | Rajaram, Prem Kumar and Rigi, Jakob |
| Department | Sociology MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2013/mihailescu_mihail.pdf |
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