2024
Airbnb careers. Investigating the minor entrepreneurship of peer-to-peer
hospitality economy participants.
Marc CHATAIGNER
Abstract – Peer-to-peer (P2P) hospitality platforms like Airbnb epitomise the reality of platform
capitalism behind the sharing economy narrative. The literature has exposed how platform activities
impact local economies while salvaging the creative labour of love of independent ‘hosts’. Home-based
forms of hospitality are not new. The crux of platform capitalism lies in transforming a population into‘micro-entrepreneurs’ commercialising their lives and communities. Nevertheless, how can we fathom
the micro-entrepreneurships inventing hospitality categories or initiatives to lodge displaced
populations for free? What explicates these ambiguous practices that enact market exchanges andchallenge capitalist discourse? The study of platform participants’ professionalisation gained a renewedinterest because their careers out of platforms’ organisational liability and yet under constantalgorithmic control leave them at risk of social and economic alienation, and regulations discerning
casual hosts from professional multi-property operators would prevent crowding out local residents.
This doctoral research investigates what subjectivities do P2P hospitality platform-based microentrepreneurs become and contributes to the economic sociology literature on market formation. This
doctoral research adopts a market constructivist lens to study the hosts’ trajectories outside on-demandorganisations or institutional realms. The empirical exploration of the careers of P2P hospitality
participants draws on ethnographical account and discourse analysis in line with the market
constructivist approach. Data collected between 2019 and 2021 was derived from in-situ observations,in-depth interviews in Japan, and online observations of discussion forums in the USA, France andJapan. The expansion of the P2P hospitality industry post-travel restrictions suggests that pre-Covid
observations and findings are still relevant to investigating the ‘becoming host’.
This dissertation comprises of six chapters. After a general introduction, Chapter 2 offers a literature
review examining the material and discursive strategies behind the rise of platform-based microentrepreneurship. The existing literature allows us to discern in the different modes of resisting platform
capitalism the ability of platform participants to subvert the confines of micro-entrepreneurship.
Chapter 3 delves into the discussions debating the role and position of hosts in the P2P hospitality
economy. The discourse analysis maps the different subject positions voicing opposing representationsof ‘hosts’. Chapter 4 empirically follows the P2P hospitality-in-the-making to explicate platform
participants’ ambivalent practices. The empirical analysis shows that platform participants' alternative
careers are inspired by the opportunities to venture away from the economic imperatives and hospitality
obligations encountered in practice. Chapter 5 shifts the lens away from the individual careers of hosts
to the collective discourse around becoming hosts to understand how platform participants shape therepresentation of hosts while remaining unorganised. The online ethnography highlights how the online
companionships of platform participants staging their disagreements instantiate the figure of the hostas an equal partner conceded by Airbnb. In Chapter 6, I propose and discuss the concept of ‘minor
entrepreneurship’ to characterise the crafty P2P hospitality micro-entrepreneurial careers.
This doctoral research makes some theoretical and practical contributions. Existing literature onmarket assemblage argues that markets form after concerned publics negotiate new market framings.
The findings show that the yearnings for independence circulating at the intersection between market
and non-market assemblages are already shifting the intent of market exchanges before new managerial
or regulatory framings. Secondly, the search for an agreeable framing that resolves the matters ofconcern entails a consensus-building process confined to proxies that speak on behalf of others.
Empirical analysis suggests that dissentient companionships allow unaccounted voices to represent theirperspective without a consensus on shared purpose or formal leadership. This dissertation proposes
practical implications for civilising P2P hospitality markets.