1 Market exchange or social bond? Characterizing the exchanges in collaborative consumption Jean-Samuel Beuscart (Orange Labs / LISIS, Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée) Marie Trespeuch (Orange Labs) Draft for the SASE Conference, Berkeley, june 2016 In recent years, the term "collaborative consumption" has been coined to describe a set of ĐoŶsuŵptioŶ pƌaĐtiĐes ďased oŶ the diƌeĐt edžĐhaŶge of goods aŶd seƌǀiĐes ďetǁeeŶ ĐoŶsuŵeƌs (Botsman & Rogers, 2010). The intermediation is performed through digital platforms, which provide various matching tools to the non-professional suppliers and demanders. Such exchanges between private individual have been developing for a long time in the case of second-hand goods, through platforms like eBay and Craiglist. More recently, they came to involve crafted goods (Etsy) and a growing range of services: Hosting (Airbnb), transportation (BlablaCar, Drivy, Lyft), equipment rentals (Zilok), domestic work (TaskRabbit), etc. Though scholars may differ about the scope and the deŶoŵiŶatioŶ of this ŵoǀeŵeŶt ;soŵe put the eŵphasis oŶ shaƌiŶg – Sundararajan, 2016), all agree about the emergence of a specific consumption sphere, characterized by exchanges between individuals mediated through digital platforms. Beyond the economic success of these companies 1 , the growth of collaborative consumption is associated, at least according to its promoters, with a number of promises about the nature and the meaning of the exchanges made on these platforms. A first argument emphasizes a better use of objects and properties, a more reasonable consumption, which has positive environmental impacts (Peugeot et al., 2015). A second promise focuses on the relations between the partners of the exchange: peer-to-peer exchanges are potentially more authentic, more rewarding, carrying a warmer sociability than ordinary market relationships. Platfoƌŵs ŵaŶageƌs ofteŶ ƌefeƌ to a fƌieŶdlLJ eĐoŶoŵLJ, ŵade of ŶiĐe ĐoŶǀeƌsatioŶs, iŶteƌestiŶg eŶĐouŶteƌs, ŵutual aid and warm relationships (Botsman and Rogers, 20010; Gansky, 2010). On the contrary, for more critical observers, collaborative consumption extends the scope of the icy waters of egotistical calculation. By turning private individuals into small commercial entities – and taking a commission on the exchanges, collaborative consumption platforms entice and exploit a labor performed out of the production sphere (Sholz, 2013). In this paper, we focus on the merchant social links built by through these digital platforms. Collaborative consumption appears as an opportunity to ask anew the question of the social thickness of market exchanges, whose description is an important issue for economic sociology. For thirty years indeed, the New Economic Sociology (NSE) has tried t to embed economic ties in social life, against the under-socialized fiction of the neoclassical homo economicus. Whether through social network analysis, the examination of values and culture surrounding economic life, and the study of the institutions that shape economic actions, the NSE has fruitfully renewed the 1 The growth of the consumption sphere can be observed in the uses as well as in the turnover of the companies that organize the exchanges. BlablaCar, a carpooling service initiated in 2004, gathers 1 millions users in 14 countries; AirBnB offers one million housing solutions in 190 countries, and the company market value is estimated around 25 billion dollars.