Economic Sociology and Social Relations
Summary
Economic sociology investigates how social structures, cultural meanings and interpersonal ties shape economic behaviour and institutions. Central to the field is the concept of embeddedness, whereby markets and transactions are enmeshed in networks of trust, power and reciprocity rather than operating as disembodied forces. Scholars examine how actors negotiate moral obligations, status hierarchies and collective identities when allocating resources, from micro-level consumer choices to macro-level financial systems. Research highlights the role of relational work in directing flows of money, the cultural scripts that govern valuation practices and the institutional arrangements that mediate risk and reward. By illuminating the social underpinnings of credit, investment and consumption, economic sociology offers insights into policy design, financial inclusion, market regulation and the emergence of alternative exchanges such as complementary currencies.
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Economic Sociology and Social Relations publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in economic sociology and social relations across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Embeddedness: The degree to which economic actions and institutions are constrained and shaped by ongoing social relations and networks.
Buy-now-pay-later (BNPL): A short-term, interest-free credit service enabling consumers to defer payment, often mediated through digital platforms and governed by informal power dynamics.
Financialisation: The growing influence of financial motives, markets and actors on economic processes and social life, altering patterns of risk and value extraction.
Routinizing mode: A valuation practice treating monetary tokens as universally interchangeable abstractions, independent of their physical form.
Scrutinizing mode: A valuation practice that emphasises the materiality, wear and historicity of money objects, attributing indexical significance to their physical characteristics.
References
- Credit Dom(me)s, BNPL switches and debt subs: Experiences of pain and pleasure. Journal of Business Research (2025).
- Follow the money. Environment and Planning A Economy and Space (2022).
- Routinizing and scrutinizing: Divergent yet potentially complementary modes of valuing money's material forms. Journal of Material Culture (2024).
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