Paper short abstract:

Compers are the serial entrants of promotional competitions. Based on ethnography amongst compers in Australia, I explore how the practice of entering, winning and fantasizing about winning can create and sustain an optimistic world-view despite challenging personal and financial circumstances.

Paper long abstract:

Ethnographic considerations of optimism in capitalist settings have swung widely between agentive and deterministic theoretical approaches. In the former, epistemologies of opportunity and hope have been described in relation to economic theories (e.g. Miyazaki 2013). In the latter, anthropologists have emphasized the role of powerful corporations in manufacturing hope, thus evoking ideas of false consciousness (e.g. Dolan & Johnstone-Louis 2011). With the ambition of paving a middle ground between the two, I will present findings from ethnography amongst compers in Australia.

Comper is an emic term used to identify those who regularly enter promotional competitions run by corporations. Predominantly female, and often bound to the home because of caring duties and/or underemployment, compers can spend dozens of hours per week entering competitions online. For many, comping is a way of "switching off" from worries in their life, therein creating an experience of escape through "flow" (Csikszentmihalyi 1998). In addition, whether it be for cars, holidays or cash, winning and fantasizing about winning works to create and sustain a world-view characterised by optimism. As compers often say, "you never know what's coming 'round the corner". In orientating their fantasies towards the future, therefore, compers can find relief from the personal and financial stresses of the present. Through engagement with theoretical literature regarding hope, time, precarity and gambling, I will demonstrate how the anticipatory logics of comping call into question dominant approaches to understanding the practices and imaginaries of everyday life under capitalism.