ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses a process of critical de-essentialisation regarding the concept and function of 'the market'. The market may have a powerful structuring effect, but at closer inspection it is in itself conceptually non-linear, needs to be approached from different sides such as perspectives, practices, synchronically, diachronically, and thus cannot be fixed to one specific aspect or order of imagination. The market is frequently mentioned in the same breath as commodification, and, in postcolonial studies, both tend to carry a negative connotation. In strategic management and marketing, they frequently function as analytical tools, assisting individual actors in assessing economic environments and in identifying or categorising markets according to specific criteria. The extent to which 'markets' cannot be located in practice with absolute certainty or essence, recipe-like conceptualisations of markets and market practices must be eschewed. In business studies, the 'product life cycle' is often considered a model appropriate for depicting the diachrony of markets.
