Holy Mary Goes ’Round : Using Object Circulation to Promote Hybrid Value Regimes in Alternative Economies

This study examines how object circulation — the recurrent transferring of objects among members of a group — can be used to foster a hybrid value regime in alternative economies. Prior research notes that alternative economies harbor multiple conceptions of what is valuable, suggesting that hybridity can help sustain alternative economies. This study mobilizes ethnographic and netnographic data to examine the circulation of singularized objects in a religion-based alternative economy in Brazil focusing on value creation through object circulation to shed light on the constitution of value regime hybridity. Findings explain how the governing institution in this economy — the church — fosters a hybrid value regime through promoting the creation of multiple types of value outcomes and incentivizing their intertwining. We discuss how value regime hybridity reduces tension and criticism directed at the alternative economy and promotes resource dependence among heterogeneous participants