As a result of the devastation wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic, many newly under- and unemployed individuals have turned to Multi-Level Marketing companies (MLMs), which offer tempting rewards and the illusion of easy success. By forcing “independent contractors” to recruit friends and family, the MLM business model operates under an even more remorseless form of the “exploit or be exploited” capitalistic maxim, but these notorious ventures are only one example of the commodification of our social relationships.

This panel will broadly address the ways personal relationships can be commodified, questioning the neoliberal economics and politics that promote the exploitation of our social lives. Some areas to consider include: hierarchies of friendship, often among women, within MLMs; recruitment and reward systems in cults and fundamentalist religious sects; social media and the quantification of friendship; the parasocial performance of intimacy within “influencer” culture; biotechnology companies gathering and selling genetic data; and other areas of study. When we have “good relations” with one another, how soon before those relations are mined for their commodity value? And how might awareness of this cycle allow individuals and communities to resist in creative, generative ways that foster even deeper connections?

We welcome submissions that address topics from a variety of theoretical perspectives, including, but not limited to, social epistemology, feminist and queer STS, information studies, critical racial and economic justice, Indigenous ways of knowing, and disability studies. In bringing varied perspectives on commodified relationships into conversation with one another, this panel will support resistance through the formation of critical networks vigilantly aware of their potential for exploitation.