abstract

Capitalist commodities have a necessary but overlooked accompaniment: aftermarkets. Aftermarkets are conventionally understood as secondary commercial transactions linked to commodity consumption and circulation. Yet for many products with accelerating design complexity, tighter regulation, growing debt financing, safety, and sustainability concerns, the action is in aftermarkets. Following feminist economic geography’s recognition of betweenness and messiness, we theorize commodities and their aftermarkets beyond the production-consumption binary. Three themes emerge. First, purchased commodities are far from finished. Commodification remains ongoing after exchange, with actors tussling over value extraction. Second, beyond transactional conceptions, aftermarkets are the loci of ongoing social relations, especially for products essential to life opportunities. Manufacturers manipulate time horizons, locking consumers into relationships while encouraging subsequent sales and preconfiguring second-hand aftermarkets. Third, commodities are imbricated in multidirectional power geometries, embodying informational, technological, financial, and labor relations that evolve in everyday circulation, use, decay, and waste. We illustrate via automobiles and their aftermarkets, visiting spaces at the production-consumption interface. Cars are increasingly embedded with digital technologies and noninterchangeable components, enabling firms to coordinate aftermarkets, marginalize independent operators, harvest driver information, and predict profits. Meanwhile, car dependencies among vulnerable households are exploited. Inequalities and conflicts unfurl between competing capitalist interests, regulators, and households across the income spectrum. Mediating social relations are predatory finance, calculative designs, data platforms, and technological rents. Commodities, we conclude, are unfinished. Aftermarkets must figure more prominently in economic geography, as important arenas of value creation suffused with uneven social relations.

摘要

资本主义商品有一个必要但被忽视的伴随物：售后市场。售后市场通常被理解为与商品消费和流通相关的二级商业交易。然而，对于许多设计复杂性加速、监管更严格、债务融资、安全性和可持续性问题日益严重的产品而言，采取的行动是在售后市场。遵循女权主义经济地理学对中介性和混乱性的认识，我们将商品及其售后市场理论化为超越生产-消费二元的理论。出现了三个主题。一是采购的商品远未完成。交换后商品化仍在继续，参与者为价值提取而争论不休。其次，除了交易概念之外，售后市场是持续社会关系的场所，尤其是对于生活机会必不可少的产品。制造商操纵时间范围，将消费者锁定在关系中，同时鼓励后续销售并预先配置二手售后市场。第三，商品在多向的权力几何中错综复杂，体现了在日常流通、使用、衰变、和浪费。我们通过汽车及其售后市场进行说明，参观生产-消费界面的空间。汽车越来越多地嵌入数字技术和不可互换的组件，使公司能够协调售后市场、边缘化独立运营商、收集驾驶员信息并预测利润。同时，弱势家庭之间的汽车依赖被利用。不平等和冲突在整个收入范围内相互竞争的资本主义利益、监管机构和家庭之间展开。调解社会关系的是掠夺性金融、计算性设计、数据平台和技术租金。我们得出结论，商品尚未完成。售后市场必须在经济地理中占据更突出的地位，因为价值创造的重要领域充斥着不平衡的社会关系。我们通过汽车及其售后市场进行说明，参观生产-消费界面的空间。汽车越来越多地嵌入数字技术和不可互换的组件，使公司能够协调售后市场、边缘化独立运营商、收集驾驶员信息并预测利润。同时，弱势家庭之间的汽车依赖被利用。不平等和冲突在整个收入范围内相互竞争的资本主义利益、监管机构和家庭之间展开。调解社会关系的是掠夺性金融、计算性设计、数据平台和技术租金。我们得出结论，商品尚未完成。售后市场必须在经济地理中占据更突出的位置，因为价值创造的重要领域充斥着不平衡的社会关系。我们通过汽车及其售后市场进行说明，参观生产-消费界面的空间。汽车越来越多地嵌入数字技术和不可互换的组件，使公司能够协调售后市场、边缘化独立运营商、收集驾驶员信息并预测利润。同时，弱势家庭之间的汽车依赖被利用。不平等和冲突在整个收入范围内相互竞争的资本主义利益、监管机构和家庭之间展开。调解社会关系的是掠夺性金融、计算性设计、数据平台和技术租金。我们得出结论，商品尚未完成。售后市场必须在经济地理中占据更突出的位置，因为价值创造的重要领域充斥着不平衡的社会关系。