The Boundary Work of Commercial Friendship

In English With the aim to reconsider lifestyle values in relation to economic rationality in small tourism and hospitality businesses, we focus on the “commercial home” as a site where boundaries between personal and commercial values are constantly performed in practice. Through an interactionist analysis of the narrative of a B&B and gallery owner, we illustrate the emergence of intimacy as a commercial value in the hospitality industry. We analyse the formation of values as a dynamic social process where a traditional market ethos is both rejected and reformulated. We argue that by focusing on the co-creation of value in interactions between producers and consumers, new possibilities to analyse service economy dynamics become visible.