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Everything about Commodification
Transformation of goods, services, ideas and people into commodities or objects of trade
Commodification is the process of transforming inalienable, free, or gifted things into commodities, or objects for sale. It has a connotation of losing an inherent quality or social relationship when something is integrated by a capitalist marketplace. Concepts that have been argued as being commodified include broad items such as the body, intimacy, public goods, animals and holidays. Wikipedia →
🧭 Start here: a 6-step reading path
- Read the overview: CommodificationA 5-minute orientation
- Skim a recent paper: An anatomy of carewashing: Corporate branding and the commodification of care during Covid-19Influential work since 2022
- Pick up a classic book: Overdosed AmericaThe most-reprinted book on the subject
- Read the landmark paper: The Commodification of LanguageCited 658 times
- Go sideways: CommoditizationA closely related topic
- Go sideways: Commodity fetishismA closely related topic
📖 Definitions
Noun The assignment of a commercial value to something previously without such value.
Noun The transformation from being commercialized on a nonfungible basis into becoming a commodity that is fungible.
🏆 Landmark papers (most cited)
The Commodification of Language
Globalization, the new economy, and the commodification of language and identity
Performativity, Commodification and Commitment: An I-Spy Guide to the Neoliberal University
Economic valuation and the commodification of ecosystem services
Contemporary medical tourism: Conceptualisation, culture and commodification
The Nature That Capital Can See: Science, State, and Market in the Commodification of Ecosystem Services
The Commodification of Intimacy: Marriage, Sex, and Reproductive Labor
The Commodification of the Body and its Parts
🆕 Influential since 2022
An anatomy of carewashing: Corporate branding and the commodification of care during Covid-19
Newly minted: Non-fungible tokens and the commodification of fandom
Sustainable Education and Sustainability in Education: The Reality in the Era of Internationalisation and Commodification in Education—Is Higher Education Different?
Towards the engagement economy: interconnected processes of commodification on YouTube
State-led commodification of rural China and the sustainable provision of public goods in question: A case study of Tangjiajia, Nanjing
📚 Books worth reading
Overdosed AmericaJohn Abramson · 2004
Concepts of CapitalJacek Tittenbrun · 2014
Stakes And KidneysJames Stacey Taylor · 2005
Foundations of Modern SlaveryCaf Dowlah · 2021- 📕Babies for Sale?Miranda Davies · 2017
- 📕Mediums and Magical ThingsLaurel Kendall · 2021
Trans TechnologiesOliver L. Haimson · 2025- 📕Gender of LatinidadAngharad N. Valdivia · 2020
Ranked by number of editions on Open Library, a rough measure of how lasting a book is.
🔗 Related topics
- Commoditization In business literature, commoditization is defined as the process by which goods that have economic value and are distinguishable in terms of attributes…
- Commodity fetishism In Marxist philosophy, commodity fetishism (German: Warenfetischismus) is a belief that social aspects of economic goods are inherent to them, rather than…
- Heritage commodification Heritage commodification is the process by which cultural themes and expressions come to be evaluated primarily in terms of their exchange value, specifically…
- Commodification of water The commodification of water refers to the process of turning water, especially freshwater, from a public good[clarification needed] into a tradable commodity…
- Commodification of nature The commodification of nature is an area of research within critical environmental studies that is concerned with the ways in which natural entities and…
- Commodity In economics, a commodity is an economic good, usually a resource, that specifically has full or substantial fungibility: that is, the market treats instances…
- Commodity (Marxism) In classical political economy and especially Karl Marx's critique of political economy, a commodity is any good or service ("products" or "activities")…
- Subculture In the sociology of culture, a subculture is a group of people within a cultural society that differentiates itself from the values of the mainstream or…