Do ethnographers make markets? Cultural economy after collaboration

This essay introduces the special issue ‘Do ethnographers make markets?’ The contributions compiled here pose a new kind of problem for their respective authors. In their usual research, they study other practitioners (economists, marketeers, engineers, regulators, tax officials), along with their forms of knowledge, devices, and the effect these have on the economic situations in which they operate. By contrast, for the cases reported in this issue, the authors have become participants, collaborators with the practitioners they often investigate, in applied market interventions. The articles reflect on the conceptual and practical challenges emerging with this shift from observing to collaborating. In this introductory essay, we draw together what we deem are the most salient questions, insights, and puzzles that emerge upon reading the papers in this issue collectively.