Interaction Rituals at Content Trade Fairs: A Microfoundation of Cultural Markets

Abstract

In this article, we show how ritualized periodic encounters of business partners help to reproduce business relations and a shared understanding of doing business based on ethnographic fieldwork at six international trade fairs in three different cultural industries. We draw on Randall Collins’ theory of interaction rituals (IRs), which highlights the relevance of emotional contacts in social life. Although Collins’ theory and his conceptional instruments help to shed light on a neglected aspect in the sociology of markets, our results go beyond his ethological interpretation of interactions. First, we conclude that Collins underestimates the direct impact of the uneven distribution of economic resources on IRs. Second, we observed not only emotional entrainment in IRs but also the strategic production of emotions.