Markets Interaction: Food Market Interdefinition Agencing

Interação de Mercados: Agenciamento de Interdefinição de Mercado de Alimentos

ABSTRACT

Objective:

in order to collaborate with the ongoing research program on how markets intersect and overlap, this theoretical essay introduces the notion of market interdefinition agencing.

Theoretical framework:

the theoretical framework draws on previous constructivist market studies on the process of framing, overflowing, translation, and agencing in a market interaction context.

Methods:

to illustrate the market interdefinition agencing, this article uses a theoretical essay on slow and fast food markets.

Results:

this essay depicts how slow food can be seen as an overflow in opposition to fast food framing, agencing opposite sociotechnical elements for the construction of this new frame, and how slow food also contributes to a new fast food frame.

Conclusion:

first, this essay shows that both food markets entangle and disentangle sociotechnical elements that move away from or closer to each other, translating and agencing their sociotechnical arrangements. Second, market interdefinition agencing is delineated as a process of market interrelation that happens through the capacity of actors to shape markets, where a previous market is used as a reference to influence another market frame.

Keywords:
markets interaction; fast food; slow food; market interdefinition agencing; constructivist market studies

RESUMO

Objetivo:

para colaborar com o programa de pesquisa em andamento sobre como os mercados se cruzam e se sobrepõem, este ensaio teórico introduz a noção de agenciamento de interdefinição de mercado.

Marco teórico:

a estrutura teórica se baseia nos pressupostos analíticos dos estudos de mercado construtivistas, o processo de enquadramento, transbordamento, tradução e agenciamento em um contexto de interação de mercado.

Métodos:

para ilustrar o agenciamento de interdefinição de mercado, este artigo usa um ensaio teórico sobre mercados de slow e fast food.

Resultados:

este ensaio descreve como o slow food pode ser visto como um transbordamento em oposição ao enquadramento do fast food, agenciando elementos sociotécnicos opostos para a construção deste novo enquadramento, e como o slow food também contribui para um novo enquadramento do fast food.

Conclusão:

primeiro, este ensaio mostra que ambos os mercados de alimentos emaranham e desembaraçam elementos sociotécnicos que se afastam ou se aproximam um do outro, traduzindo e agenciando seus arranjos sociotécnicos. Segundo, o agenciamento de interdefinição de mercado é delineada como um processo de inter-relação de mercado que acontece por meio da capacidade dos atores de moldar mercados, onde um mercado anterior é usado como referência para influenciar outro quadro de mercado.

Palavras-chave:
interação de mercados; fast food; slow food; agenciamento de interdefinição de mercado; estudos de mercado construtivistas

INTRODUCTION

Markets are ongoing constructions (Nenonen et al., 2014), hence malleable and subject to multiple change efforts and shaping (Storbacka & Nenonen, 2015). The range of such shaping is broad and varied (Mele et al. 2015), such as the scholars’ efforts to depict it, including the markets for travel (Fehrer et al., 2020), liquefied gas (Flaig & Ottosson, 2022), beer (Dalmoro & Fell, 2020), and even cannabis (Kjellberg & Olson, 2017).

Wieland et al. (2021) show that although studies concerning systemic and institutional change have had a (shy) presence in marketing since the early 1950s, scholars have recently begun revitalizing and highlighting a more encompassing, dynamic, systemic understanding of markets, and actively created. In this context, a few studies (Geiger & Kjellberg, 2021; Kjellberg & Olson, 2017) draw attention to the interdependencies and reverberating effects of market change beyond singular product markets.

After the innovative perspective established by Kjellberg and Olson (2017), where the formation of legal cannabis markets in the US got inspiration and combined features from a range of existing markets, Geiger and Kjellberg (2021) organized the first step in a research program on market intersections and overlaps. Thus, Geiger and Kjellberg (2021) extend insights into markets’ systemic and combinatorial characteristics.

To collaborate with the ongoing research program on how markets intersect and overlap, this theoretical essay introduces the notion of market interdefinition agencing, as a process of market interrelation that happens through the capacity of actors to shape markets, where a previous market is used as a reference to influence another market frame.

To this end, this theoretical essay combines the background of previous constructivist market studies (CMS) with Callon’s (1984) interdefinition idea about actors’ orientation in a market approach based on Kjellberg and Olson’s (2017) and Geiger and Kjellberg (2021) perspective about market interrelations. Another contribution is the contextual location of the positioning of the analysis. Both Kjellberg and Olson (2017) and Geiger and Kjellberg (2021) analyze a phenomenon, specifically dealing with the marijuana market and how it appropriated processes from the pharmacological market to create its regulatory system, and the combination of medication and technology markets to construct an innovation: digital therapeutics. This essay takes the discussion to the influence between intrinsically related and opposing markets, expanding the analysis by Kjellberg and Olson (2017) and Geiger and Kjellberg (2021).

Fast food, initially framed as a symbol of globalization in a modern (Gaytán, 2004) industrial society (Wilk, 2006), had its process of agencing based on sociotechnical arrangements, such as fast, convenient, accessible, affordable, and flexible practices (Block et al., 2004; Fulkerson, 2018; Jones, 1983; Price, 1991; Rydell et al., 2008; Schlosser, 2012). On the other hand, slow food has arisen to break the fast food paradigm, bringing to society new ways of behaving, and, especially, different ways of consuming. In this context, slow food carries critiques of the dynamics of globalization, positioning itself as an example of resistance (Sassatelli & Davolio, 2010), agencing its sociotechnical arrangements in alternative, ethical, and even political consumption practices (Donati, 2006; Lee et al., 2014; Nosi & Zanni, 2004; Pietrykowski, 2004; Sassatelli & Davolio, 2010; Schneider, 2008; Simonetti, 2012; Williams et al., 2015).

To construct this theoretical essay, we used findings about fast food and slow food in the literature, just as Neumann and Laimer (2019) used elements of relationship marketing in interorganizational relationships. Based on Guissoni and Neves (2013) and Siqueira et al. (2023), scientific research can take the form of an essay conceived as a logical and reflective exposition regarding an academic topic, where there is greater freedom for part of the authors positioning elements not yet well developed or outlined in the literature. In the same way as Dalmoro et al. (2014), the theoretical essay included the deepening of a proposed theme through an extensive bibliographical review, making it possible to illustrate the market interdefinition agencing.

Three sections follow this introduction. Initially, the theoretical grounding relates to the conceptual reviewing market through the CMS’s lens and the notion of interdefinition. Secondly, the contemporary food markets are depicted from the market interdefinition agencing notion, explaining the framing of a specific market, and the way overflows are translated by actors to a new frame or influence the reframing of the previous market resulting in the process of their interdefinition agencing. Finally, we conclude the study by identifying our review’s main contributions, limitations, and suggestions for future studies.

THEORETICAL GROUNDING

Market in action

There is widespread concern among market studies scholars not to treat markets as pre-existing givens or static; they argue that markets are ongoing constructions, never ‘readymade’ (Nenonen et al., 2014; Storbacka & Nenonen, 2015). Storbacka and Nenonen (2011) argue that markets evolve in a perpetual reciprocal process as various actors introduce new ideas in the form of new or modified business model elements that influence the actors’ market practices.

According to Kjellberg and Helgesson (2006), markets are multiple, and they co-exist, bringing light on this multiplicity and dealing with market actors’ role in it; Storbacka and Nenonen (2015, p. 73) explain that “markets take on multiple forms as actors develop their subjective definitions of the market and then attempt to make their respective definitions a shared definition through a reciprocal process among relevant market actors.” For instance, Dalmoro and Fell (2020) emphasize the active sociotechnical construction of markets, empirically showing that actors are capable of changing positions in a system of exchange and describing how actors working on boundary objects developed products and practices that, in their study, catalyzed the construction of craft and commercial dimension in a beer market.

Therefore, Peters et al. (2020) stress a collective concern to understand the processes and mechanisms that produce and reproduce markets and shape them. Part of this joint of scholars, who are dedicated to studying markets, are receptive to the denomination constructivist market studies (CMS) (Dalmoro & Fell, 2020; Fuentes & Samsioe, 2021; Geiger & Kjellberg, 2021; Kjellberg & Helgesson, 2007; Nenonen et al., 2014; among others) and deal with markets as part of a dynamic construction involving multiple elements (human and non-human), constituted by practical efforts of several agents, capable of framing sociotechnical enactments. Thus, to delineate the notion of market interdefinition agencing, the guiding CMS concepts are presented: (1) framing, overflow, and (re)framing; (2) sociotechnical agencing; and (3) translation.

Initially, Callon (1998, p. 250) evidenced that “to negotiate a contract or perform a commercial transaction effectively presupposes a framing of the action without which it would be impossible to reach an agreement.” Thus, the process of framing does not depend only on the actors themselves but also on how they have been rooted in various physical and organizational devices, as shown by Peters et al. (2020) in the ‘magical world’ of Santa. Generally, “the frame establishes a boundary within which interactions - the significance and content of which are self-evident to the protagonists - take place more or less independently of their surrounding context” (Callon, 1998, p. 249).

Nevertheless, Callon (1998, p. 251) emphasized that “… in certain cases framing is either impossible to achieve or is deliberately transgressed by the actors: this produces overflows which cause the barriers to become permeable.” In other words, overflows are outcomes of incompleteness, imperfection, or failures in the process of framing, making, and defining selective inclusions and exclusions, as stressed by Çalışkan and Callon (2010). Thus, the framing generates a possible overflow and, consequently, an attempt at reframing. Palo et al. (2020) show that overflows may constitute opportunities for market actors to collaborate in the reframing stressing that it opens up new possibilities for valorization.

Another important process for the market and its framing is sociotechnical agencing. In general, the notion of market agencing is a way of describing the various entities that pragmatically promulgate calculative devices and shape and fit consumer behavior, as in the case of meal box schemes analyzed by Fuentes and Samsioe (2021), on how digital devices spread from the personal domain to multiple socio-cultural domains. Callon (2016, p. 12) sustained that “market agencing refers to the collective action structured by sociotechnical devices and intended to establish successful bilateral commercial transactions and to promote their proliferation.” Cochoy et al. (2016) show that the term ‘agencing’ is used to refer to the efforts involved in market-shaping and, therefore, the sociotechnical agencement making up markets, while considering their capacity to act and give meaning to their action, as described in Çalışkan and Callon (2010).

Specifically, Çalışkan and Callon (2010) argue, “agencements are arrangements endowed with the capacity to act in different ways, depending on their configuration” (p. 9). Thus, the market loses the notion of a given structure and becomes an agencement, implying that it is enacted by various agents and actions (Storbacka, 2019). Systematically, sociotechnical agencing is a calculative process involved in market-shaping (Fuentes & Samsioe, 2021) and market-making (Palo et al., 2020), establishing a boundary of actions and allowing its framing.

Finally, the concept of translation was first developed by Latour (1984) and Callon (1984) and later applied to market studies. According to Kjellberg and Helgesson (2007, p. 144), the translations refer to “… the basic social process by which something - an idea, a rule, a text, a product, a technology, a claim - is spread across time and space,” emphasizing the continuity of the displacements and transformations. For instance, Wieland et al. (2021) show that the conceptualization of sustainable markets is involved in the way of describing markets and explaining their inner workings where all social and economic activities should consider their aggregate impact on the environment, and it is translated to normalizing practices that focus on moderating the use of resources and production such as minimizing ecological footprints and prioritizing societal welfare over nominal economic growth.

Thus, translations represent traceable connections between practices. Central to sociotechnical translation processes is the notion that ideas, practices, or elements may be transformed or take different forms. From this perspective, Kjellberg and Helgesson (2006) demonstrate that different (yet overlapping) versions of the same objects are enacted through different practices, resulting in multiple versions.

This initial CMS framework advocates that the market can present multiple versions, as the outcome of successive processes (mentioned above) in a specific market. In other words, a market changes based on its practices. Since Kjellberg and Olson (2017), the logic of market dynamics is placed in a broad context, thus, CMS has begun a movement to understand the interaction between markets and, more recently, their combinatorial process (Geiger & Kjellberg, 2021), admitting that markets change based on their interactions. In this way, this essay combines the background of previous constructivist market studies (CMS) with Callon’s (1984) interdefinition performative idea about actors’ orientation in a market approach based on Kjellberg and Olson (2017) and Geiger and Kjellberg (2021). Therefore, the notion of interdefinition is presented below.

The notion of interdefinition

Kjellberg and Olson (2017), using the emblematic formation of legal cannabis markets in the US case, showed that adjacent markets are capable of influencing emerging market regulation, signaling that there are interactions between markets, thus crossing the boundary of analysis into the market in its own form.

Recently, Geiger and Kjellberg (2021) took a step forward in a research program on market intersections and overlaps and sustained that “markets are not closed systems, but that overlaps, intersections and ‘interferences’ between different markets are a likely and frequent occurrence” (p. 446). This perspective opens an avenue of analysis that makes it possible to study markets from the angle of their interactions.

In order to contribute to this program, this essay uses Callon’s (1984) interdefinition idea about actors’ orientation in a market approach. Interdefinition was initially developed by Callon (1984) in a micro-level situation that involved “a whole series of actors by establishing their identities and the links between them” (p. 205), stressing that the identities of the actors themselves are open to question, as is the question of whether values, interests, or wishes move them. In addition, regarding actors and practices, Kjellberg et al. (2018) argued that the idea of becoming an actor is to be recognized by others. Thus, actors determine who is the relevant one for a particular interaction, e.g., service-for-service exchange or resource integration.

According to Kellershohn et al. (2018), they do so by recognizing and orienting their actions toward specific others, such as shown by La Rocca, Perna, Snehota, and Ciabuschi (2019) in an empirical case study about interrelations arising from open-ended expectations of mutual future relational benefits, and these involve a stepwise interdefinition of practices through the interaction between the parties. La Rocca et al. (2019) also observed that interdependence arises between actors involving a new venture and its key suppliers. This interdependence not only enables but also limits the development paths of both parties.

Andersson et al. (2008) explained how automated purchasing software frames how an order is placed to repurchase office supplies, indirectly showing what Callon (1984) had called the obligatory passage point, and “it indicates the movements and detours that must be accepted, as well as the alliances that must be forged.” (p. 206) Thus, Andersson et al. (2008) demonstrated through sociotechnical elements that a configuration of alliances, engagements, or associations between entities defines the identity and what they want. In the case analyzed by Callon (1984), “a Holy Alliance must be formed in order to induce the scallops of St. Brieuc Bay to multiply” (p. 206).

In the CMS perspective, the essence of reality is emergent and relational since it is produced in sociotechnical relations in the process of interdefinition among different entities (Kjellberg & Helgesson, 2006). Therefore, “market actors are configured through a practical process of interdefinition” (Kjellberg & Helgesson, 2006, p. 843), configurations of market actors engage in market practices (Storbacka & Nenonen, 2011), and the actual practice of actors in the market confers upon the market a particular form and dynamic, as described in Baker et al. (2019) and Dalmoro and Fell (2020).

In addition, regarding the market actors’ importance concerning market practices and market dynamics, Vargo (2010)commented that, for markets to emerge and/or evolve, market actors draw on something external to the market. According to Storbacka and Nenonen (2015), market boundaries become dynamic, porous, and contentious due to external norms, institutions, logics, and frames.

According to Kjellberg and Olson (2017), as markets emerge and take form, they are interrelated to markets from which they are supposedly distinct. The interrelations described by Kjellberg and Olson (2017) include referential links to similar or affected markets, the translation of features and market practices from historic, parallel, and auxiliary markets, as well as influences from exchange complementarity and substitutability.

Similar to Kjellberg and Olson (2017), Geiger and Kjellberg (2021) point to essential interdependencies and reverberating effects in a sophisticated study on the digital therapeutics market across markets, stressing several consequences for market actors but also emphasizing their role in establishing these interactions.

In this study, the focus of interdefinition is applied to the markets’ intersections. It overlaps the program drawing on Kjellberg and Olson’s (2017) and Geiger and Kjellberg’s (2021) view on market interrelations, paying particular attention to market actors and their practices. Fast and slow food are presented as examples of market interdefinition agencing and fully explored below.

THE FOOD MARKETS

Framing sociotechnical elements and their practices

The Slow Food Movement emerged in the mid-1980s in Italy and is dedicated to the “promotion of local, sustainable foodways, whether the elements are endangered farm breeds and cultigens, particular farm products, regional food specialties, or restaurants which support local producers” (Chrzan, 2004, p. 118). At the same time, this movement is commonly understood as a growing and organized protest against the fast-paced lifestyle and against the proposed opening of a McDonald’s fast food restaurant in Rome (Hsu, 2015).

On the other hand, although not so well delineated and framed in the food literature, fast food emerged in big cities with the growth of industrial society, coinciding with Eisenhower-era glorifications of technology (Chrzan, 2004; Schlosser, 2012). According to Jones (1983), in big cities, people may be at work and/or play 24 hours a day, neither wanting to be hungry nor spending much time at a dining table. Thus, fast food values mass-produced, convenient, and pre-packaged foods (Hsu, 2015).

Specifically, the slow food philosophy is based on the statement established by its principal founder, Carlo Petrini, which, according to Schneider (2008), is a set of principles articulated in three words: (1) good: tasty and diversified, produced to maximize its flavor, as well as highlighting its bonds to a geographical and cultural region; (2) clean: connected to the ability of these foods to be sustainable and help preserve rather than destroy the environment; and (3) fair: food produced in a socially sustainable way, with an emphasis on social justice and fair wages.

Relocating food at the center of human culture (Schneider, 2008), the philosophy of slow food is framed on the pleasures of the meal table, representing material culture - the culture of kitchens and food - and serves as a metaphor for community sharing (Thompson & Kumar, 2021), based on pleasure as a right and not as a privilege, placing cultural and ecological diversity at the center of its ethic of taste (Sebastiani et al., 2013).

Consequently, these practices are possible mainly through the actors’ agencing of sociotechnical elements, such as: (1) the organization of events/campaigns, like Convivia, Food and Farm Bill, Dig In, What’s the Buzz?, and $5 Challenge; (2) taste education, with specific educational activities for young people; and (3) academic education aiming to qualify people, such as the University of Gastronomic Science and Slow Food on Campus (Chaudhury & Albinsson, 2015; Nosi & Zanni, 2004), showing its particular dynamics of market agencement. Slow food produces entities, gastronomic and food industry professionals equipped and capable of assembling ever-higher quality food that is good, clean, and fair, as Schneider (2008)shows.

These social and environmental sustainability practices are possible through specific institutional work, as empirically described by Chaudhury and Albinsson (2015) and Nosi and Zanni (2004), agencing sociotechnical elements in slow food, such as: (1) Ark of Taste project; (2) Slow Food Award for the Defense of Biodiversity; (3) Presidia, directly intervening at the local system level providing business services to producers; (4) Thousand Gardens in Africa, providing education for farmers and young people; and (5) the Slow Cities Movement.

In the opposite direction of slow food, fast food comprises four essential elements according to Price (1991): (1) low relative prices; (2) served quickly; (3) suitable for eating with fingers, disposable packaging, and, when applicable, disposable cutlery; (4) finished product durability in terms of minutes and hours (as opposed to more extended periods for snack food). To frame these practices, actors within fast food have disentangled sociotechnical elements constituted hitherto: (1) “fast food restaurants don’t need to buy knives, forks, spoons, plates, cups, table cloths … so they don’t need to wash any”; (2) they sell only a few kinds of food; (3) “the jobs are easy, so they don’t need to teach new workers for a long time”; and (4) the workers don’t need to do all the work, as some are passed on to consumers (Jones, 1983, p. 7).

In this sense, actors agency sociotechnical elements that frame the fast food as available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and as convenient food accessible at corner stores (Fulkerson, 2018; Phau & Ferguson, 2013), served at restaurants, drive-throughs, stadiums, airports, hospitals, schools, and universities, on airplanes, trains, and cruise ships (Schlosser, 2012).

Fast food consumption is arranged by time pressure and perceptions of ease and convenience (Fulkerson, 2018; Phau & Ferguson, 2013), besides speed, location, taste, variety, price, and promotional deals (Kara et al., 1997). Under these circumstances, Jones (1983) emphasized that consumers are not buying food; they are buying time at a fast food place. Besides the shorter list of meals, actors within fast food have entangled sociotechnical elements based on the mass-cooked meals materials, the proximity of the kitchen, advance payment, allowing consumers to watch the cooks at work and not lose time going back a second time to pay (Jones, 1983).

Literature on food markets shows that changes have led to the evolution of new dynamics, such as the creation of the slow food as opposed to modern food traditionalism. In contrast, there is some binary opposition market interdefinition agencing. This opposition is well documented in the literature based on the elements that are entangled in the slow food frame, with the relationship to sustainability and policy with suppliers, the consumption experience, food variability, consumption motivations, meal availability, and representations of consumption, thus, generating a specific framework. The Fast and slow food framing is presented in Figure 1, synthesizing each sociotechnical element.

Figure 1
Slow and fast food framing and their sociotechnical arrangement.

In summary, slow food is used ritually and rhythmically in an attempt to create a connection with a structured belief system that is in opposition to a (not very well delineated) process or entity called fast life (Chrzan, 2004), especially as an interdefinition opposed to the arrival of McDonald’s (Hayes-Conroy, 2010) and taste standardization (Nosi & Zanni, 2004). This opposition market interdefinition agencing is established via the defense of material pleasure - a pleasure that takes the form of food (Gaytán, 2004), declaring fidelity to a calmer, more graceful, pleasant past (Chrzan, 2004).

A translation process based on interdefinition through framing and overflowing

Initially, as an alternative market, a new frame in the food market is established: slow food. As presented by Chrzan (2004), this new frame has sociotechnical elements standing “… in opposition to a (not very well defined) process or entity called Fast Life. (p. 120)” The latter, called fast food, has sociotechnical elements represented as fast, ready-to-eat, and affordable (Calloni, 2013; Rydell et al., 2008), with perceptions of ease and convenience (Fulkerson, 2018; Phau & Ferguson, 2013), besides convenient location, good taste (Rydell et al., 2008), good variety, and promotional deals (Kara et al., 1997).

In this way, it is possible to note, based on Gaytán (2004), that the sociotechnical elements of this frame are translated by slow food into the diminished taste, family deterioration, and the collapse of tradition, singling out the industry for preventing people from socializing, devastating family dining patterns, and wiping out local cuisine (Price & Lawson, 1992). Furthermore, fast food consumers are considered ‘barbarians,’ ‘stupid and sad,’ and even victims of a ‘virus,’ almost literally suggesting a dehumanized person (Simonetti, 2012), which ends up in an understanding of the necessary desire to resist this dominant fast food culture by searching for obscure, local, and regional foods and cuisines that evoke a cultural patrimony that should be part of the habit constitution (Thompson & Kumar, 2021).

By translating fast food as related ideologically to an industrial society, based on the repetitiveness and phantasmagoria of goods reproduced identically in a serialized schedule (Calloni, 2013), the sociotechnical agencing establishes slow food as the opposite interdefinition to a type of food consumed quickly and without quality. Preferring to preserve biodiversity reinforces taste and promotes pleasure through all five senses (Calloni, 2013), with declared fidelity to a calmer, more graceful, pleasant past (Chrzan, 2004). Slow food has been transformed from appealing only to gastronomes into becoming a broader field that encompasses social justice activists and environmentalists (van Bommel & Spicer, 2011).

Despite this translation, Price & Lawson (1992) highlighted: “to maintain such a perspective is to ignore all of the food innovations and environmental initiatives of companies such as McDonald’s, Burger King and Kentucky Fried Chicken” (p. 10). Thus, fast food companies are making positive contributions aligned with slow food despite its translation of preventing people from socializing, devastating family dining patterns and wiping out local cuisine (Price & Lawson, 1992). In other words, attempting to frame the mainstream market (in this case, fast food), overflows emerge. A new frame is enabled, these being sociotechnical elements agencing, reconfiguring, and transforming the mainstream market into one that presents sustainable elements.

Thus, market interdefinition is not unilateral. The market framed in opposition interdefinition becomes a point of reference for the predecessor market, and the feedback through the interdefinition of overflows can be translated and thus reframe the previous market.

Process of agencing through overflowing and reframing

Considering markets as configurations of market actors engaged in market practices (Korkman et al., 2010; Storbacka & Nenonen, 2011; Storbacka, 2019), these can influence the market’s capacity to assume and retain the form, establishing new market forms. Both food markets (fast and slow) could present the capacity to assume and retain new forms shaped by actors endowed with the capacity to shape other actors, producing overflows and reframing both.

Initially, fast food was framed as a symbol of globalization in modern industrial society (Gaytán, 2004; Wilk, 2006), agencing its sociotechnical arrangements in fast, convenient, accessible, affordable, and flexible practices (Fulkerson, 2018; Jones, 1983; Price, 1991; Rydell et al., 2008; Schlosser, 2012). While translating the fast food overflows and their sociotechnical arrangements, market actors framed slow food in market interdefinition in opposition to them (Chrzan, 2004; Hayes-Conroy, 2010; Wilk, 2006), agencing its sociotechnical arrangements in critical, alternative, ethical, and even political consumption practices, as described by Sassatelli and Davolio (2010).

Despite this initial market interdefinition, entanglements and disentanglements occur in the market, moving away from or closer to the other food system. In other words, when actors try to frame slow and fast food, overflows emerge, causing the barriers to becoming permeable, as conceptualized by Callon (1998). Due to market plasticity and these permeable barriers, the food market is agencing similar sociotechnical arrangements, blurring the initial opposition market interdefinition agencing between slow and fast food.

Regarding fast food, the slow food framing and its overflows have enabled changes in the process of agencing in similar practices, but entangling and disentangling different sociotechnical arrangements and reframing fast food. Specifically, fast food configuration actors use some of the slow food overflows to follow the path of Callon’s (1984) obligatory passage points, which indicate the paths and detours that must be made to achieve their goals/desires, reframing the fast food and interdefining it based on the slow food overflows. For instance, the food knowledge and nutrition proposed by slow food are entangled in fast food, namely food away from home; especially fast food is often associated with higher energy and fat intake, contributing to obesity and other nutritional problems (Thaichon & Quach, 2016). As a result, suggestions have emerged to increase consumer awareness and knowledge about fast food, like nutrition labeling, as demonstrated by Dunford et al. (2017) and Niven et al. (2019).

Likewise, earlier considered as an innovative strategy in fast food, such as described by Schröder and McEachern (2005), actors such as McDonald’s and KFC are making dietary information available for each meal, to be accessed via nutritional calculator tools on each company’s website. Afterward, according to O’Dougherty et al. (2006), this innovative strategy, strongly supported by consumers, has become a law in some countries like the U.S., requiring restaurants to list nutrition information on their menus (Dunford et al., 2017; Niven et al., 2019). Some countries have voluntary initiatives, such as Australia’s Health Star Rating (HSR) front-of-pack interpretive labeling system (Dunford et al., 2017; Niven et al., 2019). In particular, “the HSR system rates the overall nutritional profile of a packaged food and assigns it a rating from ½ a star to 5 stars. It is designed to provide a quick, easy, standard way to compare similar packaged foods - the more stars, the healthier the choice” (Niven et al., 2019).

Additionally, agencing sociotechnical elements aiming to reduce the list of meals (Jones, 1983), fast food has been reframed, including an increase in food variety in the U.S., its center of origin, as demonstrated by McCrory et al. (2019). In particular, “there were substantial increases in the number of foods across and within menu categories, indicating a greater variety of food choices available, and the additional choices were not all healthy” (McCrory et al., 2019, p. 927). In this sense, despite not promoting healthier food-purchasing behavior, fast food has also entangled healthy options (e.g., pasta salad, fruit bags, corn-on-the-cob) along with traditional burger and chicken meals (Schröder & McEachern, 2005), entangling the notion of slow food nutrition.

Besides this, the fast food market actors have also entangled sociotechnical arrangements to achieve social and environmental sustainability. Although initially focusing on economic sustainability, Shokri et al. (2014) emphasized the emergence of environmental and social awareness and practices. Considering this, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is introduced in fast food, defined as an “… organization’s status and activities with respect to its perceived societal obligations” (Brown & Dacin, 1997, p. 68), and incorporates concerns about employment (Royle, 2005), animal welfare (Schröder & McEachern, 2005), health (Schrempf, 2014), environmental-friendliness, fair trade, safety, and human rights (Maloni and Brown, 2006).

In addition to CSR, many restaurants have chosen to add other elements to their menus that trigger added value to their dishes, organic food being a good example of this practice. Likewise, mainstream grocery stores are carrying more organic options and trying to support local farmers, as Chaudhury and Albinsson (2015)described. According to Boobalan and Nachimuthu (2020), organic consumption is associated with health concerns and social, financial, and environmental sustainability. In particular, consumers see organic labels as a differential from a promotional perspective, with no interest in environmental or social issues (Boobalan & Nachimuthu, 2020).

This process of agencing concerning sustainability practices has brought a unique dimension to restaurant menus, satisfying the consumer’s desire for a new gastronomic experience, keeping organic food as the primary type, not only for the environmentally sustainable aspects but also for the quality of the product itself and its experience. Seeking to exceed consumers’ expectations beyond just satisfaction (Giboreau & Meiselman, 2018) and improving customer satisfaction, fast food has begun to offer tasty, visually attractive foods at a suitable temperature (Namkung & Jang, 2007). Thus, fast food has recognized the customer’s desires/needs, identifying that quality products may have to exceed expectations to generate positive emotions (e.g., healthier and organic food).

Besides organic and healthier food, according to Privitera and Nesci (2015), street food is considered quick, convenient, and cheap. Therefore, a kind of fast food gained strength by stressing social construction and historical symbolism (Calloni, 2013). In this sense, Privitera and Nesci (2015) mentioned the curiosity of those whose approach to street food is to have new taste experiences, perceiving these by the coexistence of tastes and old and new gastronomic experiences. Moreover, as a kind of street food service, the gourmet food truck phenomenon has arisen, stimulating a “… new entrepreneurial class able to transform a passion into a real job, combining tradition, i.e., the enhancement and use of excellent local raw materials in food preparation, with innovation, i.e., revised traditional recipes, innovative packaging, the use of social media” (Alfiero et al., 2017, p. 2465).

Schösler and Boer (2018) stressed that the gourmets might be able to reveal practices and cultural assumptions that would help to find entry points for promoting more sustainable food choices among the general public. Thus, fast food, specifically the modality of street food, through gourmet status, has entangled slow food practices based on new gastronomic experiences, social construction, and historical symbolism.

Besides maintaining quality products that meet or exceed customer standards, Giboreau and Meiselman (2018) also emphasized the need to provide additional effects entangled in atmospheric aspects, such as differentiated services. As a result, fast food has entangled the food experience to differentiate itself, as proposed by slow food, agencing technology-based services, such as digital entertainment (Kellershohn et al., 2018) as a form of adapting to new technologies.

Likewise, technology is prevalent during the family dining experience. As highlighted by Kellershohn et al. (2018), it is common for a family to bring technology, such as a tablet, an iPad, or a handheld gaming system, into a restaurant specifically for their child(ren) to use. Thus, fast food is agencing sociotechnical arrangements to make a toy better able to compete with more appealing technology-based alternatives, entangling a code or access to a smartphone app with a toy so that the child receives both a physical toy and access to a virtual game (Kellershohn et al., 2018).

In summary, fast food has entangled the experience just like slow food, but with a process of agencing focused on technology-based service elements (Kellershohn et al., 2018; Souiden et al., 2019). Therefore, as Kellershohn et al. (2018, p. 114) highlighted, “fast food restaurants appear to have taken on a ‘third place’ role for families, offering not only fast convenient dining but also a public space in which to gather and spend time.” While the main reasons for eating at fast food establishments are based on speed, ease of access and good tastes, this reframing has added new reasons: eating fast food is a way of socializing with family and friends, restaurants have nutritious food to offer, besides being fun and entertaining (Rydell et al., 2008), and there is agencing of similar consumption motivations like slow food (e.g., social dimension).

Similarly, slow food presents a new loop of market interdefinition agencing by using some fast food overflows to follow the path to the obligatory passage points. For instance, despite slow food translating globalization as a threat to eating healthy food, this market uses it as an opportunity to broadly promote a culture of excellence, indirectly presented by Nosi and Zanni (2004). Chrzan (2004) sustained that “Slow Food has the opportunity, through name recognition and use of the Internet and standard informational sources, to create a space for public dialogue and action that can alert citizens to the weaknesses of the current food system.” (p. 131).

Although slow food participants associate modern industrial practices with the negative aspects of contemporary lifestyles, Gaytán (2004) emphasized that current technologies are needed to promote such food as an international market, in which “the ability of diffusing information represents, therefore, a valuable asset influencing the potential business development of the organization” (Nosi & Zanni, 2004, p. 785). In this sense, besides the internet with an institutional website, Sloweb, as a sociotechnical element and its e-learning (Chrzan, 2004; Nosi & Zanni, 2004), slow food also enters the media industry, founding a publishing company, Slow Food Editore (Nosi & Zanni, 2004).

Thus, even criticizing many aspects of globalization and many consumers adept in the globalized world of food and being framed as in market interdefinition agencing opposition, slow food allows non-human elements in new reframing to be promoted. Regarding technology-related agencing in market agencement, slow food uses sociotechnical elements similar to fast food, tied to the information tools of the globalized world.

In addition to the current information and communication technologies, slow food has entangled dishes considered by many as being of the fast food type, despite agencing practices based on local food. Using the example of pizza globalization (Price, 1997), and citing that the simple idea of a bread dish with tasty toppings, simple in shape and size, adaptable to various ingredients, has potential roots everywhere, which often generates the development of a local dish. The same entanglement can happen to a hamburger - fast food symbol (Reiter, 1996) - by agencing local and regional ingredients (e.g., rare varieties of cheese), taking time to judge, digest, and reflect upon the nature of “quiet material pleasure” (Holt, 2002).

Despite the entanglement of commodity dishes, Chaudhury and Albinsson (2015) and Holt (2002)pointed out the possible entanglement of a quick meal within the slow food canon, exemplifying that an omelet takes less time to prepare than the average burger and also promotes the fast food notion of cheapness through the $5 Challenge, i.e., a campaign challenging people to cook and sell slow food for no more than five dollars per person (the price of a typical fast food ‘value meal’). In an empirical study, McEachern et al. (2010) revealed that ‘conscious’ consumers recognize their limitations (time, convenience, and price).

Slow food was framed based on slow practices (Thompson & Kumar, 2021), concentrating on “… the formation and preservation of heirloom seed varieties, educating the local public about local culinary tradition through regional celebrations of food, and encouraging ethical purchasing practices among consumers” (McIlvaine-Newsad et al., 2008, p. 77). However, slow food has started agencing sociotechnical elements based on the availability of the fast food market interdefinition. Besides cooking, sharing a meal, and growing fruits and vegetables (Thompson & Kumar, 2021), these activities extend to purchasing directly from local farmers instead of grocery stores (Chaudhury & Albinsson, 2015). Slow food has changed the market structure through the Eataly store, in which a company (Eataly) and a social movement (Slow Food) had negotiated and collaborated before initiating a new business model (Barbera & Dagnes, 2016; Massa & Testa, 2011; Mele et al., 2019; Sebastiani et al., 2013).

Significantly, slow food inspired and sponsored Eataly (Barbera & Dagnes, 2016), sharing the ideology of ‘good,’ ‘clean,’ and ‘fair food,’ which is to say that food must taste good, be ecologically sustainable and be produced in a socially fair way, as well as providing an informal setting where customers can “buy, eat and learn about high-quality foods” (Massa & Testa, 2011, p. 477).

Despite being an innovative ecosystem with multiple actors engaged in co-creating value, focusing on healthy food and customer experiences combined with environmental responsibility (Mele et al., 2019), and based on slow food sociotechnical arrangements, Eataly can be regarded as a case of mainstreaming in terms of store layout, broad product range, and its overall company size (Sebastiani et al., 2013). In addition, Massa and Testa (2011) place Eataly as an example of a company born global that internationalized soon after its inception, with “branches in New York, Tokyo, São Paulo, Dubai, Seoul, as well as several European and Italian cities” (Giordano et al., 2018, p. 629).

Therefore, Eataly has become a successful food retailer with shops in Italy and other countries, such as Japan, Brazil, and the U.S. (Barbera & Dagnes, 2016; Massa & Testa, 2011). Based on slow food practices and sociotechnical arrangements, Eataly is an example of the entanglement of a large-scale fast food company, which is considered a mainstreaming internationalized company with fast food availability, offering support to ethically-minded customers’ buying behavior, as well as simultaneously attracting mainstream customers (Sebastiani et al., 2013). In addition to Eataly, Dell’Era et al. (2020) also showed slow food agencing sociotechnical elements to capture value through developing internal assets and new business models, integrating resources with other actors (Coop and Barilla).

Altogether, slow food has also entangled sociotechnical arrangements through fast food overflows interdefinition. In summary, due to the calculative capabilities, food markets show that overflows are undergoing agencing and translation through market interdefinition. In this sense, both food markets (fast and slow) present the capacity to assume and retain new forms, these being shaped by actors with the capacity to shape other actors, producing overflows and, consequently, reframing both, according to Figure 2.

Figure 2
Slow and fast food.

As mentioned above, in an ongoing process, both food markets are entangling and disentangling sociotechnical elements that move closer to each other, translating and agencing particular sociotechnical arrangements and practices. Thus, these markets are interdefined and able to influence the form of each other, playing an important role in market plasticity. Regarding each, fast and slow food framing and their overflows have enabled changes in the food market dynamic, agencing similar practices, but entangling and disentangling different sociotechnical arrangements, reframing each food market. The findings also contribute to Palo, Mason, and Roscoe’s (2020) argumentation about overflows and opportunities for market actors; this essay shows that market actors not just take market overflows as opportunities to collaborate in the reframing but they act directly to shape markets in which their need and desire may be criteria for new market practices.

As an illustration, both food markets are agencing the following practices: (1) food knowledge: slow food is focused on understanding food and its production process, while fast food is based on nutritional information; (2) social and environmental sustainability: whereas slow food is based on supporting producers, fast food has entangled the CSR; and (3) experience: slow food has entangled symbolic experience with cultural and regional gastronomes, whereas fast food has entangled technology-based services. Thus, the sociotechnical elements in the food markets are organized to frame and reframe the slow and fast food markets in an ongoing process through mutual reinforcement using different elements.

Thus, the notion of market interdefinition agencing is helpful to explore market interaction and can be understood in a market context as one that contributes to the constitution of others. Market interdefinition agencing is enacted via practices borrowed from historic, parallel, auxiliary markets and sociotechnical influences. The interdefinition is established through the interaction of the markets, with at least one of the markets conceiving the other as a reference. Another point is that in market interdefinition, at least one of them may have the capacity to influence the others.

Based on this essay, the market influence may not only be to assimilate practices but also to form practices necessarily different from existing ones. In the food case described, not only did one of the markets have the other as a reference and came under its influence, but it is also noteworthy that, at different times, both markets were in an ongoing formation-based process on market interdefinition agencing.

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE STUDIES

Market interdefinition agencing is delineated as a process of market interrelation that happens through the capacity of actors to shape markets, where a previous market is used as a reference to influence another market frame. As demonstrated, the current food markets feature a series of specific sociotechnical market arrangements that have been reframed through overflows, entangling new practices, and reframing other markets.

This essay serves as a valuable starting point in a research program focused on market intersections and overlaps, as introduced by Geiger and Kjellberg (2021), by aiding in the expansion of insights into the systemic and combinatorial features of markets. Specifically, market interdefinition agencing contributes by shedding light on the complex market interrelations. The description of food markets reveals that new markets can be, and are being, shaped by market interdefinition. Thus, this article shows that markets can be explored based on previously established markets, although these can and are shaped by new ones. Concerning actors, they do not work in an orchestrated mode, nor do they scheme to shape markets, as stressed by Baker et al. (2019) in the Circus case. However, market interdefinition agencing plays in a specific direction where actors collectively contribute to constructing and sharing elements and practices.

The interdefinition market agencing remains a promising direction for further research agenda, shedding light on the complex markets’ interrelations and influence. In order to continue developing this topic, more work must be done to fully grasp the market interdefinition agencing. A helpful point of departure could be the selection of elements and practices engaged and translated in market interdefinitions, which may justify which are framed and abandoned, revealing organizational criteria in this unorchestrated process.

Another future research was initially raised by Geiger and Kjellberg (2021) questioning the boundaries of markets, after all, there is interaction among markets, so the question of where one market ends and another starts is still important. Thus, future research into the interactions among markets may find market interdefinition agencing useful to trace the mutations and translations that happen across markets, maybe not defining their boundaries but helping to find their origins and references.

Finally, many interactions must take place over time, which results in multiple market dynamics, modifying modes of exchange and qualifications of products and services, for example. Thus, the question of the direction the market will follow is linked to the agency capacity of its market actors, and the CMS assumes a decentralized capacity; however, recent studies (Baker et al., 2019) go in the opposite direction of the distributedness of agency, suggesting that the agency can be explored in a centralized way; therefore, the work of Nøjgaard and Bajde (2021) can help in understanding how some premises can be incorporated into CMS, and how small groups or even a single actor sociotechnically equipped is capable of orchestrating market-shaping. Such as depicted in the recent ethnographic market study by Fuentes and Fuentes (2022) regarding Reko rings, which shows that the patchworking infrastructure enables the formation of market actors, coordination of the market actors’ activities, and the qualification and valuation of foods, thus, shaping markets.

Acknowledgments

The authors express their gratitude to Professors Hans Kjellberg and Riikka Murto for reading earlier drafts and for their suggestions, and to Professors Marlon Dalmoro, João F. R. Sauerbronn, Daniel C. de Rezende, and Francisco G. D. Vieira for encouraging Constructivist Market Studies in the EnANPAD conference, as well as the anonymous reviewers for their discerning advice in developing this article.

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  This content was evaluated using the double-blind peer review process. The disclosure of the reviewers’ information on the first page, as well as the Peer Review Report, is made only after concluding the evaluation process, and with the voluntary consent of the respective reviewers and authors.

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• JEL Code:

  M310, D4

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Edited by

Editors-in-chief:

Marcelo de Souza Bispo (Universidade Federal da Paraíba, PPGA, Brazil) https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5817-8907

Paula Chimenti (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, COPPEAD, Brazil) https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6492-4072

Associate Editor:

Marlon Dalmoro (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil) https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6211-0905

Data availability

RAC encourages data sharing but, in compliance with ethical principles, it does not demand the disclosure of any means of identifying research subjects, preserving the privacy of research subjects. The practice of open data is to enable the reproducibility of results, and to ensure the unrestricted transparency of the results of the published research, without requiring the identity of research subjects.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  26 Aug 2024
• Date of issue
  2024

History

• Received
  01 Dec 2023
• Reviewed
  08 June 2024
• Accepted
  14 June 2024
• Published
  10 July 2024