Journal
QUALITATIVE SOCIOLOGY
Volume -, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s11133-023-09553-7
Keywords
Interaction; Brokerage; Relational work; Consumption; Valuation
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This study explores how brokers shape consumers' valuation by establishing trust, creating consumption settings, and finding matches between consumers and products through face-to-face interactions in the New York housing and art markets.
Across various markets, consumers rely on brokers to help them select goods. How do brokers shape consumers' valuation? We address this question by drawing from two independent but analogous ethnographies of brokerage and purchasing in the New York housing market and the New York art market. Building upon the relational turn in economic sociology, we identify the interlocking mechanisms by which brokers influence valuation in face-to-face interaction: Brokers (1) build trust by establishing rapport and displaying expertise, (2) prepare consumers to purchase by priming the consumption setting so that consumers compare a specified set of goods and experience urgency, and (3) posit matches between consumers and products, relying on demographic and cultural characteristics of consumers to complete transactions. Our novel theorization of brokerage has broader implications for understanding valuation and consumption.
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