Paper short abstract:

We investigate the practices and techniques that are used to perform and test encounters between goods and consumers in experimental settings by disciplines like experimental economics, consumer studies or sensory studies. To do so we analyse studies characterising farmed cod as a market good.

Paper long abstract:

How are the qualities and values of commodities mapped and assessed? What kinds of expertise participate in commodity- and market-making, and how? When studying such questions, one encounters whole fields of research devoted to the characterisation of goods and consumers, from sensory studies to behavioural and experimental economics to consumer studies. We seek to explore the practices and settings that these "sciences of co-modification" rely on - the term "co-modification" here means to emphasise that the making of markets transforms both goods and consumers, involving both matter and values. To do so, we study the example of Norwegian farmed cod. A decade ago, Norway invested in cod farming, and studies evaluated the market potential of this new seafood product. Starting from a semiotic analysis of a set of scientific articles describing the results of these studies and from interviews with the researchers involved, we investigate the practices and techniques that are used to enact cod-commodities and cod consumers in laboratory or experimental settings. We are interested in how they organise encounters between products and consumers, examine how the two relate, and, in that process, co-modifies them. This opens up questions about how economics and market research may perform various market phenomena.