Relational Work in the Economy

Abstract

In her groundbreaking scholarship on intimacy and economy, Viviana Zelizer coined the concept of relational work, or efforts in matching social relations with economic transactions and media of exchange. This article reviews the conceptual advances and empirical applications of relational work over the past two decades. I first trace the origins of the concept and discuss how it is distinct from the idea of embeddedness. I then identify variants of relational work proposed in economic sociology, including relational accounting, obfuscated exchange, clarifying and blurring practices, and emotions and power in relational work. The second part of the review discusses research on relational work in five areas: earmarking money, walking the terrain of morally problematic exchange, configuring social relations through economic activity, using social relations to negotiate economic interactions, and scaling up to relational work of organizations and institutions. I end by proposing areas of future research to examine the determinants and consequences of relational work for (dis)trust, (in)equality, and relational (mis)matches. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Sociology, Volume 46 is July 30, 2020. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

How to Sell a Friend: Disinterest as Relational Work in Direct Sales

“…How people make sense of and navigate their economic and social lives is a central problem in economic sociology (Bandelj 2020;Zelizer 2012), and the case of direct selling provides an opportunity to examine it in sharp relief. After all, distributors engage regularly in economic transactions with known-and sometimes intimate-others.…”

“…Other work contemplates how narrative, practices, bodies, and organizations (including their histories) all shape how people experience economic activities and respond to them (Almeling 2007;Anteby 2010;Reich 2014). Relational economic sociologists have been particularly interested in the efforts that people exert to reconcile their economic and social lives (Bandelj 2020). They recognize that good economic transactions involve more than having the right technology or media; they require relational work as well (Zelizer 2006).…”

“…H OW people make their economic interests congruous with meaningful social relationships is a central problem in economic sociology (Bandelj 2020;Zelizer 2012). Though ever evolving, the technologies of exchange are rather straightforward; the sociology of exchange, however, is not.…”

“…Past research affirms that connected lives are indeed possible, but scholars understand good matches between economic transactions and social relations as an accomplishment rather than a given (Zelizer 2006). An important goal of the relational school in economic sociology has been to make sense of relational work in economic transactions (Bandelj 2020).…”

Toward a sociology of finitude: life, death, and the question of limits

“…Commonly known as "morals and markets" scholarship, this approach took on studying economies as societies-places where collective conscience, identities, and moral categories are formed (Fourcade & Healy, 2013. Viviana Zelizer, who laid out the field's most elaborate analytical framework, defined her approach as relational sociology: studying how people create and negotiate distinctions between different social relations, economic or non-economic (Bandelj, 2020;Zelizer, 2004aZelizer, , 2004bZelizer, , 2011Zelizer, , 2012. The same applied to scholars in the emergent field of valuation studies, who used the terms "values" and "valuation" in analyzing all human activities, whether or not they are traditionally regarded as "economic" (Beckert & Aspers, 2011;Boltanski & Thévenot, 1999;Christin, 2018;Espeland & Sauder, 2007;Kiviat, 2019;Stark, 2000).…”