Markets and the Arts of Attachment

"This important collection revisits the vexed question of attachment and how it works in market contexts. Are attachments constraining or sustaining customers? Are they manipulative or emancipatory? Beyond such active/passive dichotomies, the authors use a bold range of tools and cases to show how the attachments between people and their things are orchestrated through sentiment, kinship, technique, devices, bodies, practice and more. Using cases including the Apple Watch, payday lending, internet dating and call centres, the authors reveal the elaborate tricks that markets and their customers play on each other."

- Antoine Hennion, Professor of Sociology, École des Mines de Paris, formerly Director of the Center for Sociology of Innovation (CSI)

"Why do people get attached to products? The authors perceive the arts and devices surrounding human attachment as key drivers of contemporary markets. This inspiring and pioneering book offers multiple explanations full of rich discussions on inquiry and reflexivity, categories and valuation, ties, marketing agendas, digital economy, culture and sentiments, among others. It also provides a wide array of advanced theories and research techniques with detailed empirical results. It pushes the academic frontiers of economics and sociology as from assemblages of agency or dynamic interactions of agents and products. A must-read for researchers and practitioners alike!"

- Tsotumo Nakano, Professor of Organizations, Corporate Strategy and International Management, Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo