Seminar on the sociology of matching algorithms with Melchior Simioni and Philippe Steiner
Seminar on the sociology of matching algorithms with Melchior Simioni and Philippe Steiner
Organized by The Work, Expertise, Technology, Organization (WETO) group
& the Market and Valuation cluster
Date February 20, 2025 from.13.00 -15.00
Location Copenhagen Business School, Kilevej 14 A, 2000 Frederiksberg in Room K4.74 (4th floor)
Register here before February 10, 2025
As the advertising of a recruitment platform puts it: “don’t search, match!”. The solution of critical problems –recruitment, dating, school allocation, and even organ donation- increasingly relies on matching algorithms. Algorithms that sort and pair, while aiming to optimize satisfaction of participants’ revealed preferences and the aims set by the organizers of the match. The presenters in this seminar - Melchior Simioni (University of Strasbourg) and Philippe Steiner (Sorbonne University), the authors of La société du matching (Presses de Sciences Po, 2024) – argue that matching must be understood as a distinctive social structure which pushes us to rethink how we traditionally classify modes of exchange.
Symmetrical choices coordination. Melchior Simioni and Philippe Steiner
Abstract
This paper examines the new form of coordination central to matching arenas. Unlike the market, this coordination relies on mutual symmetry in choices, as both sides of the arena express their preferences over the entities from the collective facing them to gain access to resources with significant bifurcation power. Given the scale of these collectives, the symmetrical choices coordination uses sorting algorithms, sometimes coupled with predictive algorithms. The first part of the paper outlines the social structures underpinning symmetrical choices coordination. The second part emphasizes its institutional dimension, highlighting the legitimacy forms required for it and the strong normative constraints these arenas must meet. Lastly, the paper argues for incorporating matching into Polanyi’s typology of exchange institutions. In conclusion, it suggests that matching represents the economic form best suited to contemporary society, where access to these singular goods is increasingly based on personal quantification.
Authors
Philippe Steiner is emeritus professor of sociology in Sorbonne University. His work focuses on the history of social sciences (Durkheim and the Birth of Economic Sociology, 2011 and Calculation and Morality: the cost of labor and the value of freedom, with Caroline Oudin-Bastide, 2019) and on economic sociology (La transplantation d’organes : un commerce nouveau entre les êtres humains, 2010; Faire la fête. Sociologie de la joie, 2023). He has recently published La sociologie relationnelle, 2024, a presentation of three key approaches (Network analysis, Bourdieu’s field theory and Latour’s Actor-Network-Theory) to relational sociology.
Melchior Simioni is Assistant Professor at University of Strasbourg and researcher at SAGE research center. He holds a PhD in Sociology from Sorbonne University (2020) and is an alumnus of the École normale supérieure (Paris-Saclay). His research explores the economic organization of confinement spaces, the sociology of quantification, and the sociology of matching. Among his publications are L'économie au pari de la sociologie (co-edited with Sidonie Naulin and Marie Trespeuch) and “The Price of Prison Labour: Bridging Economics and Moral Correction” (published in Revue française de sociologie).
They have jointly supervised the publication of a collective research group on matching arenas (Comment ça matche? Une sociologie de l’appariement, 2022), subsequently developed in an essay (La société du matching, 2024).
Seminar organized by the Market and Valuation cluster and the Work, Expertise, Technology, and Organization group at IOA.
Those who register will receive a copy of the paper draft shared by the presenters.
For questions, contact José Ossandón jo.ioa@cbs.dk