Enchanting Fields: Collective Events and Emotion as Value-Amplifiers for the Maker Movement

Emerging economic fields often resemble social movements because the risk of championing new and unrecognizable business ventures deters opportunists solely interested in maximizing profit, leaving social movement organizations and socially and politically motivated field pioneers to fight for field formation. However, once social and material support for a new field is established, the draw of more certain profits pulls in entrepreneurs that are solely interested in establishing a money-making enterprise. These new entrants are more likely to prioritize economic efficiency over social and political goals associated with the early, movement-like field. As a field becomes more legitimate and profitable, the “market pull” dilutes the overall value-rationality of the market. Applying this theory of legitimation to the maker movement, an education and open-source technology movement that has fueled a nascent field, we find that dilution–the increasing prevalence of profit-orientation relative to value-orienta...