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With a little help from my friends: relational work in leisure-related enterprising.
- Source :
-
Sociological Review . Nov2016, Vol. 64 Issue 4, p748-765. 18p. - Publication Year :
- 2016
-
Abstract
- The present article analyses the indistinct boundaries between formal and informal economic exchanges, with a focus on friendship and work relations. To illustrate these intersections, we present a study of Swedish lifestyle entrepreneurs who run small-scale horse-related enterprises. The specific characteristics of this form of business - in which the horse farm owners/operators, customers, employees and voluntary workers share a leisure interest in horses and participate in the everyday work on the farm - provide the foundation for an economic environment where personal favour exchanges and a gift economy are intertwined with a market economy. Drawing on Viviana Zelizer's notion of 'relational work', applied in a context where the gift economy is based on individual leisure interests and leisure-based friendship, the present analysis focuses on how relationships, transactions and forms of repayments are constantly negotiated along a continuum between work-oriented friendship and friendly work relations. The empirical illustrations demonstrate the limitations of the notion of boundary work often employed in studies of relational work - which emphasizes boundary definition. In contrast, it seems that relational work may also involve practices that maintain indistinct boundaries between different types of relationships, thus sustaining tension between a formal and informal economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- *LEISURE industry
*INFORMAL sector
*FRIENDSHIP
*CAPITALISM
*TOURISM
*COMMERCE
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 00380261
- Volume :
- 64
- Issue :
- 4
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- Sociological Review
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 119975246
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-954X.12377