Valuing Cursed Objects: Mitigating Suspicions Around Engagement Rings Sold on Facebook Marketplace

• In Event: 30483 - Producing, Circulating, and Evaluating Culture

Abstract

How do you sell a cursed object? We draw on theories of stigma (Goffman 1963) to extend concepts of contamination to objects. By cursed objects, we mean objects whose meaning is tainted leading to a decrease in value or in stigmatization against ownership. Engagement rings offer an excellent case for studying cursed objects. Tracing the cultural biography of engagement rings, we can see how the meaning and value of rings change through their lifecourse. When someone ‘puts a ring on it’ that ring becomes “singularized” as a personalized symbol of love, commitment, and a specific relationship (Kopytoff 1986). Once that engagement or marriage ends, that once-singularized ring can enter the market as a commodity (ibid). Such symbolically charged objects carry with them a personal history, or at least the presumption of a history, that affects their value in the market. Based on a study of Facebook Marketplace, we observe sellers actively manage buyers’ concerns that the object might be cursed as a way to prop up the value. Sellers produce accounts (through text and images) to explain why the ring is now for sale (e.g., often emphasizing it has never been worn, or minimizing the tragic circumstances of its return to the market). This paper asks two questions: 1) what cultural strategies do sellers use to mitigate buyer suspicion? 2) Under what conditions do sellers adopt distinct mitigation strategies? This paper contributes to work on meaning, materiality, and the stability of categorization (Douglas 1966; McDonnell 2023), contamination and stigma management (Goffman 1963; Fine 2001; O’Brien 2011; Rivera 2006), and valuation in cultural and economic sociology (Zelizer 1994; Healy 2006).

Authors

• Kenadi Silcox, University of Notre Dame

• Terence Emmett McDonnell, University of Notre Dame