Introduction: What Competition Does

Hopkinson, Leo; Zidaru, Teodor

Abstract

Anthropologists, like neoliberal economists, have often assumed that competition (re)orders society in broadly predictable ways. By contrast, we contend that competition always facilitates changes beyond its anticipated outcomes and disciplinary effects. We argue that the outcomes of competition are contingent on the varied and co-existing interpretations of audiences, arbiters, and competitors about the nature of competition, what is worth competing for, and how to go about it. Hence, although it is often instituted with the intention of authoritatively determining value, generating order, or engineering predefined changes, competition inherently affords alternative and unexpected possibilities for sociality. In doing so, competition mediates divergent social orders and modes of relating, rather than instituting one order or another.

Citation

Hopkinson, L., & Zidaru, T. (2022). Introduction: What Competition Does. Social Analysis: The International Journal of Social and Cultural Practice, 66(4), 1-25. https://doi.org/10.3167/sa.2022.660401

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Online Publication Date: Dec 1, 2022
• Publication Date: 2022
• Deposit Date: Jul 12, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 12, 2023
• Journal: Social Analysis: The International Journal of Anthropology
• Print ISSN: 0155-977X
• Electronic ISSN: 1558-5727
• Publisher: Berghahn Journals
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 66
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 1-25
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.3167/sa.2022.660401