ABSTRACT
This chapter re-examines the notion of market and value through an inquiry into commodity recirculation systems. These so-called informal and ostensibly idiosyncratic settings of exchange provide an opportunity to trace objects and their value through their commodity pathway. The chapter argues that this discussion is an axiomatic concept that is under-theorised and taken for granted by scholars of consumption. The chapter first summarises the literature that formulates markets as assemblages. In doing so, It contest dualisms that are frequently used to classify marketplace phenomenon such as formal/informal, micro/macro, commodity/gift, valuable/trash. The chapter proposes an epistemology of valuation studies that focuses on the process of valuation instead of value as an outcome. It illustrates this with a brief example from a study on commodity recirculation systems. This can be done through object-centred ethnographies to trace networks of translations. The chapter concludes with a research agenda for scholars who are interested in valuation.
