Although the commodification of experience has been a long-standing concern for critical scholars, today the breadth and depth of this practice and the conscious manipulation involved is unparalleled. In this paper I analyse contemporary commodification of experience drawing on insights from the early Frankfurt school and autonomist thought. In doing so, I show how contemporary commodification of experience, understood in particular in terms of expropriation of the affective common, comprises a form of biopolitical exploitation that is part of broader biopolitical struggles in which capital seeks to draw the entirety of human life into its circuit of valorization. Although the critique of the Frankfurt school remains important, the variety of forms of experience for sale today warrants a broader politico-economic analysis in light of historical changes in the logic of accumulation and the operation of the commodity-form, which autonomist thought can help illuminate.
AdairS (2010) The commodification of information and social inequality. Critical Sociology36(2): 243–263.
2.
AdornoT (1991) The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture. London: Routledge.
3.
AdornoT (2005) Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life. Translated by JephcottEFN. London: Verso.
4.
AdornoTHorkheimerM (1997) The Dialectic of Enlightenment. Translated by CummingJ. London: Verso.
5.
ArvidssonA (2005) Brands: a critical perspective. Journal of Consumer Culture5(2): 235–258.
6.
BaranM (2008) Poorism: the economics of exploitation. Travel Weekly, 5May.
7.
BarberB (2007) Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole. London: Norton.
8.
BenjaminW (1999) Experience and poverty. Translated by LivingstoneR. In: JenningsMWEilandHSmithG (eds) Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings. Volume 2, part 2, 1931−1934. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 731–736.
9.
BenjaminW (2003) On some motifs in Baudelaire. Translated by H Zohn. In: EilandHJenningsMW (eds) Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings. Volume 4, 1938−1940. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 313–355.
10.
Blackout (2012) New York’s Blackout haunted house extends dates in L.A. due to overwhelming demand. PR Newswire, 12October.
11.
Blackout (2013) Blackout Haunted House Store. Available (consulted January18 2013) at: http://store.blackouthh.com
12.
BolognaS (1977) The tribe of moles. In: LotringerSMarazziC (eds) Autonomia: Post-Political Politics. Translated by Red. Los Angeles, CA: Semiotext(e), 36–61.
13.
BoswijkAThijssenTPeelenE (2007) The Experience Economy: A New Perspective. Amsterdam: Pearson Education Benelux.
14.
BrymanA (2004) The Disneyization of Society. London: SAGE.
15.
CloughPT (2010) The affective turn: political economy, biomedia, and bodies. In GreggMSeigworthGJ (eds) The Affect Theory Reader. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 206–225.
16.
CloughPT (2007) Introduction. In: CloughPTHalleyJ (eds) The Affective Turn: Theorizing the Social. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1–33.
17.
ConanN (2009) Poverty porn: education or exploitation?Talk of the Nation, 5March.
18.
CrawfordM (1992) The world in a shopping mall. In: SorkinM (ed.) Variations on a Theme Park. New York, NY: Hill and Wang, 3–30.
19.
De AngelisM (2007) The Beginning of History: Value Struggles and Global Capital. London: Pluto.
20.
DufresneB (2010) Gullible travels: the ethics and economics of slum tours. Commonweal, 17December.
21.
DysonP (2012) Slum tourism: representing and interpreting ‘reality’ in Dharavi, Mumbai. Tourism Geographies14(2): 254–274.
22.
FoucaultM (2007) Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1977−1978. Translated by BurchellG. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
23.
FoucaultM (2008) The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978−1979. Translated by BurchellG. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
24.
GilmoreJPineJ (2007) Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
25.
GorzA (2010) The Immaterial: Knowledge, Value and Capital. Translated by TurnerC. London: Seagull.
HardtM (2010) The common in communism. In: DouzinasCŽižekS (eds) The Idea of Communism. London: Verso, 131–144.
28.
HardtMNegriA (2004) Multitude. London: Penguin.
29.
HardtMNegriA (2009) Commonwealth. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
30.
HarveyD (2002) The art of rent: globalization, monopoly and the commodification of culture. Socialist Register38: 93–110.
31.
HarveyD (2010) A Companion to Marx’s Capital. London: Verso.
32.
Haunted House Association (2010a) Haunted houses: What’s the attraction?PR Newswire, 16July.
33.
Haunted House Association (2010b) Haunted houses scare up more business in spite of frightful economy. PR Newswire, 12October.
34.
HobyH (2011) American horror theatre: ‘a hand slams into my neck and wrenches me through the darkness’. The Observer, 4December.
35.
HollowayJ (2010) Crack Capitalism. London: Pluto.
36.
HorkheimerM (2004) Eclipse of Reason. London: Continuum.
37.
JensenR (1999) The Dream Society: How the Coming Shift from Information to Imagination Will Transform Your Business. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
38.
LancasterJ (2007) Next stop, squalor. Smithsonian37(2): 96–105.
39.
LazzaratoM (1996) Immaterial labour. In: VirnoPHardtM (eds) Radical Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics. Minneapolis, MN: Minnesota University Press, 133–147.
40.
LazzaratoM (2004) From capital-labour to capital-life. Translated by FournierVVirtanenAVähämäkiJ. ephemera4(3): 187–208.
41.
McElroyS (2011) Go with friends, or go it alone. New York Times, 28October.
42.
MarcuseH (1972) One Dimensional Man. London: Abacus.
43.
MarcuseH (2009) Negations: Essays in Critical Theory. London: MayFlyBooks.
44.
MargolisM (2008) Staying among the have-nots. Newsweek, 26May.
45.
MarxK (1976) Capital. Volume 1. Translated by FowkesB. London: Penguin.
46.
MarxK (1993) Grundrisse. Translated by NicolausM. London: Penguin.
47.
MaxwellE (2012) Scaring up extreme Halloween chills. Variety428(12): 34, 29October.
MurtolaA-M (2010) Commodification of utopia: The lotus eaters revisited, Culture and Organization16(1): 37-54.
50.
MurtolaA-M (2011) Against Commodification: Experience, Authenticity, Utopia. Doctoral thesis. Åbo: Åbo Akademi University Press.
51.
PineJGilmoreJ (1998) Welcome to the experience economy, Harvard Business Review (July-August): 97–105.
52.
PineJGilmoreJ (1999) The Experience Economy: Work is Theatre and Every Business a Stage. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
53.
RitzerG (1996) The McDonaldization of Society: An Investigation into the Changing Character of Contemporary Social Life. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.
54.
RitzerG (1999) Enchanting a Disenchanted World: Revolutionizing the Means of Consumption. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.
55.
RolfesM (2009) Poverty tourism: theoretical reflections and empirical findings regarding an extraordinary form of tourism. GeoJournal75(5): 421–442.
56.
SchmittB (1999) Experiential Marketing: How to get Customers to Sense, Feel, Think, Act, and Relate to your Company and Brands. New York, NY: The Free Press.
57.
SchorJ (2007) In defense of consumer critique: revisiting the consumption debates of the twentieth century. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science611: 16–30.
58.
SchultzeG (2000) Die Erlebnis-Gesellschaft. Frankfurt: Campus.
59.
ShivaV (1997) Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: South End Press.
60.
SmilanskyS (2009) Experiential Marketing: A Practical Guide to Interactive Brand Experiences. London: Kogan Page.
61.
SorkinM (ed.) (1992) Variations on a Theme Park: The New American City and the End of Public Space. New York, NY: Hill and Wang.
62.
TrontiM (1965) The strategy of refusal. Translated by Red Notes. In LotringerSMarazziC (eds) Autonomia: Post-Political Politics. Los Angeles, CA: Semiotext(e), 28–35.
63.
VercelloneC (2010) The crisis of the law of value and the becoming-rent of profit. In: FumagalliAMezzadraS (eds) Crisis in the Global Economy: Financial Markets, Social Struggles, and New Political Scenarios. New York, NY: Semiotext(e).
64.
WeinerE (2008) Slum visits: tourism or voyeurism?New York Times, 9March.
65.
WrightS (2002) Storming Heaven: Class Composition and Struggle in Italian Autonomist Marxism. London: Pluto.
