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Banking on Hospitality:

CouchSurfing as a (Neo)Human Economy of Convivial Connectivity

A Dissertation

MSc Social Anthropology2011-2012

Examination Number: B018970

Word count: 14,954

Kareem Farooq, 2012

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Abstract

The popularity of social networks correlates to their potential profitability. As the leading hospitality exchange network in terms of membership, CouchSurfing.org epitomizes technology’s ability to facilitate inspiring experi-ences between strangers through digital reputation systems. By enabling ac-countability and preventing remuneration, these systems encourage convivial in-teractions and considerate behavior. Each positive experience generates an ap-preciation for the community, propelling CouchSurfing’s success, and creating what I refer to as a neo-human economy. By emphasizing sociality and deem-phasizing competitive capitalization, the neo-human economy values social capi-tal over fiscal capital. While CouchSurfing’s success developed from its users’ enthusiastic reception and their proliferation of digitized social capital, the com-munity’s technological infrastructure requires financial capital to build and main-tain. As CouchSurfing.org transitions from operating as a nonprofit to a ‘socially responsible’ B corporation, its community’s neo-human economy may succumb to the interests of its profit-driven investors. However, if this new type of corpora-tion succeeds in subordinating profits and promoting sociality, then the neo-human economy’s potential to de-emphasize the competitive tenet of market logic, and thereby, to coexist with it as a mutually beneficial system of social and economic prosperity will have been realized.

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Acknowledgements

Many thanks to:

• My Advisor, Jacob Copeman, for his encouragement and, of course, his advice.• The CouchSurfers whom I have visited, met at activities, and accommodated.• My fiancée, Julia, for being willing to go on a hosting binge with me.• Daniel Miller and Jennie Germann Molz for sharing their work with me—without

their generosity, this dissertation would not have transpired as comprehensively as it has.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract………………………………………..……………………...…….…………....2Acknowledgments...…………...……………..……………………...…….…………....3Table of Contents…………………………….…………………………..………………4Glossary……………………………………………….…………………………..……...5

Preface: The World’s Largest Social Network Goes Public………………...……….6

Introduction: Anthropology takes on The Digital…………………….…………..…...8

Chapter 1: About CouchSurfing…….………….……………………………..………101.1 A Growing Body of Research…………………………………………………...111.2 Couchsurfing’s Reputation System…………………………………………….131.3 “Spirit of Adventure”………………..…………………………..………………..15

Chapter 2: A Reformulation of the Human Economy……………..…………….….172.1 Beyond a “Moral” Economy…………………………………………………….23

Chapter 3: Exchanging Hospitality for What Exactly?…..……………...………….263.1 Hospitality as a Code, Not a Gift…………….…………………….…….……..293.2 Re-Imagining Hospitality………………………..…………………………….…32

Chapter 4: Digitizing Social Capital…………………………………..…….………...364.1 When Social Capital and Fiscal Capital Collide……………...……………….39

Conclusion: Corporatizing CouchSurfing…………………………………...……….41

References……………………………………………………………..………………..48

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Glossary

Cosmopolitanism - an openminded philosophy of welcoming strangers from other cultures, appreciating their cultural differences, learning from those differ-ences, and valuing those differences (Appiah 2006: xv; Germann Molz 2007: 70).

Couch Request - a digital request sent through CouchSurfing.org to inquire about a potential accommodation with another member.

CouchSurf - the act of visiting a member of the CouchSurfing hospitality ex-change network while traveling.

Hospitality Exchange Network - a formalized social network of travelers and hosts who offer accommodation to one another (Kaefer 2007: 8).

Market logic - rationalizing all forms of exchange into a quantifiable calculus, for which reciprocity is required to equalize transactions, thereby absolving debt.

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Preface: The World’s Largest Social Network Goes Public

The usefulness of social networking websites has been debated for nearly a decade now. Critics deride these websites as time wasters—an online realm where self-indulgent individuals can announce what they are eating for lunch or their frustrations with traffic. Advocates of social media, however, revere this in-teractive platform as a revolutionary paradigm shift that enables consumers to creatively engage with their interests (Shirky 2008). With Facebook becoming a publicly traded company in recent months with an IPO (Initial Public Offering) of $38 per share (Sengupta 2012), critiquing social media as a technological fade seems condescending. However, the social networking company’s subsequent massive stock devaluation (Sengupta 2012) reiterates the position of Facebook’s critics, who question the value of not only the site but the medium as well.

By digitizing the relationships that bond friends and family members, Facebook successfully enables individuals to engage in an interactive form of sociality. As sociologists and anthropologists formulate theories and sub-disciplines to address the proliferation of digital sociality, economists and capital-ists speculate on whether the social value of these new media platforms can be quantified and capitalized into financial value, so that it may be packaged and sold as an appreciating asset. Profiting from sociality adds a strange metaphysi-cal component to investing because deriving monetary value from online sociality objectifies Facebook users into assets for commercial exploitation, negating the fact that users are people expressing and sharing their interests, opinions, and creations. Now that Facebook has gone public, failure to comprehend the nu-ances of user expectations will have real world consequences.

Facebook’s dramatic devaluation following their IPO launch, which jeop-ardized investors and investment organizations unlucky enough to have pur-chased shares early on, demonstrates certain financial consequences that capi-talizing this social network caused (Sengupta 2012). If interest in the social net-work plummeted, Facebook’s stock price would plummet as well. This correlation between a business’ product or service and its profitability is conventional. How-ever, with Facebook the service is primarily digitizing sociality. The unambiguous

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popularity of digitized sociality elucidates a new economic strategy, in which businesses that serve as a digital bridge connecting users must support sociality in order to remain successful. Commercializing the user experience with innova-tive advertising may have the unintended effect of disconcerting users, risking a detrimental network exodus.

Nevertheless, with the exception of a technological catastrophe, imagining Facebook as no longer relevant is difficult, if not impossible, because the interac-tive diversion it provides its users has become normal1.

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1 This refers to Miller and Horst’s normative tenet for Digital Anthropology, which asserts that at-tempts to understand humanity’s remarkable drive to render digital technologies mundane just as these technologies “create the conditions for change,” are unviable without anthropology (2012: 3). Ultimately, “Anthropology is one of the few disciplines equipped to immerse itself in that process by which digital culture becomes normative culture and to understand what this tells us about being human” (Miller and Horst 2012; 34).

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Introduction: Anthropology takes on The Digital

The work of anthropologists Daniel Miller and Heather Horst in developing the sub-discipline, Digital Anthropology, cements the notion that the online has become an integral part of what it is to be (and to appreciate being) human. Re-jecting the myopic assertions made by critics of the proliferation of ‘digital dis-tractions,’ Miller and Horst point out the hypocrisy of insisting that certain forms of sociality are more authentic than others (2012: 13). Using the term ‘pre-digital’ to describe sociality before the rise of email and smartphones, the duo explain why even in this age of hyper-communication, we are no more mediated than we have always been:

We are not more mediated simply because we are not more cultural than we were before. One of the reasons digital studies have often taken quite the oppo-site course, has been the continued use of the term virtual, with its implied con-trast with the 'real.’ ...Every time we use the word ‘real’ analytically, as opposed to colloquially, we undermine the project of digital anthropology, fetishizing pre-digital culture as a site of retained authenticity (Miller and Horst 2012: 15).

Nathan Jurgenson reiterates and takes further this argument in his article, “The IRL [In Real Life] Fetish,” pointing out that the offline is a recent invention:

There was and is no offline; it is a lusted-after fetish object that some claim spe-cial ability to attain, and it has always been a phantom… [W]e live in an aug-mented reality that exists at the intersection of materiality and information, physi-cality and digitality, bodies and technology, atoms and bits, the off and the on-line… What is most crucial to our time spent logged on is what happened when logged off; it is the fuel that runs the engine of social media (Jurgenson 2012).

Jurgenson, Miller and Horst cite Sherry Turkle, author of Alone Together, as their prime example of a social media critic. Her argument that devices distract us from appreciating our surroundings or those around us fails to acknowledge how these devices are used to share moments as well – for instance, by uploading photos to social networking sites (Miller and Horst 2012: 12-13). Also, as Jurgen-son mentions, forgetting one’s cellphone may trigger the recognition of a mo-ment’s unique serenity due to the absence of technology — a realization that

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would not occur were it not for the prevalence of digital devices (2012). By ques-tioning this baseless nostalgia for the pre-digital, Jurgenson, Miller and Horst ar-ticulate a novel paradigm in human interaction and affiliation. The online commu-nities we belong to blur the online/offline dichotomy, communicating preferences, personality, associations, and desires not only to our digitally connected friends, but to ourselves as well.

Interlocking identity with sociality enables social networking sites to pro-duce novel communities, in which like-minded individuals connect, sharing not simply information, but their personal aspirations, interests, quirks, humor, and even their homes. This dissertation explores one such community: CouchSurfing.org.

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Chapter One:About CouchSurfing

CouchSurfing International (CS) serves as a facilitator, fostering coopera-tion between like-minded strangers. More specifically, the website CouchSurfing.org, enables members who are traveling to meet and potentially coordinate accommodations with other members who are local to the travelers’ destination. By facilitating hospitality exchange, the website encourages its members to use the experience of hosting or ‘surfing’ to share meals, converse, and learn more about one another. While the unspoken, short-term reward of be-longing to this community is securing payment-free accommodation while travel-ing, the website and its members insist the philosophy behind CouchSurfing in-volves creating rich, intercultural experiences that may have the effect of making the world a better place (CS/Mission 2012).

The concept of a hospitality exchange network has existed for decades, the earliest global incarnation being Servas Open Doors, which was founded in 1949. As a United Nations recognized non-governmental association, Servas works “to build understanding, tolerance and world peace” by operating a net-work of “hosts around the world who are interested in opening their doors to travelers…who want to get to know the heart of the countries they visit” (Servas/Philosophy 2012). Unfortunately, the technical logistics (formal interviews are re-quired for membership) and antiquated coordination (postal letters) of Servas hampered the growth of the network (Marx 2012). The impact of the network re-mains limited to a niche body of individuals who actively pursued membership (Marx 2012). Although the hospitality network’s communication methods proved to maintain its exclusivity, it also marginalized the spirit of its mission to build tol-erance and peace. However, the idealism of Servas—which means “to serve” in Esperanto (Luitweiler 1999; 28)—survives within more technology-reliant online hospitality networks, including Global Freeloaders, Be Welcome, Tripping, Hospi-tality Club and CouchSurfing—the latter being by far the largest with 4.6 million members worldwide2.

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2 The hospitality network with the next highest membership is HospitalityClub.org with just over 700,000 members (HospitalityClub/Statistics 2012). Additionally, the United States leads the world in CouchSurfing members, and the next six highest membership nations are Germany, France, Canada, England, Spain, and Italy (CS/Statistics 2012).

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The title of this dissertation, Banking on Hospitality, is meant as a double entendre. On the one hand, it refers to the colloquial definition of ‘banking on,’ which means to depend on something, as in ‘counting on’ or relying on the hos-pitality of the CouchSurfing community. On the other, it refers to the formal defini-tion of banking, which involves investing with a financial institution. I plan to demonstrate that the extraordinary success of CouchSurfing has derived from its ability to influence its members’ behavior when interacting with one another. By encouraging convivial behavior among strangers and prohibiting the impersonal routines that derive from commercial transactions, CouchSurfing has created an informal exchange system that I refer to as a ‘neo-human economy,’ which I will expand on later drawing upon David Graeber’s debt theory and other anthropo-logical sources. The enthusiastic reception and implementation of this exchange system by the CouchSurfing community reflects the normative tenet3 of Digital Anthropology that Miller and Horst have developed. Paying particular attention to the role of technology in facilitating trust between users and confidence in the community’s mission, I suggest that by normalizing the community’s technologi-cal components, CouchSurfers overcome the skepticism of their non-member friends and family, who cannot overlook the possible danger in accommodating or visiting a stranger from the internet.

1.1 A Growing Body of Research

Over the past five years the unparalleled success of CouchSurfing has at-tracted the attention of researchers who have investigated different aspects and themes generated by the community such as trust (Rosen et. al 2011), reciprocity (Adamic et. al 2011), spatial practice (Zuev 2011; Pultar and Raubal 2009), authenticity (Bialski 2007, 2011; Steylaerts 2011; Chen 2011), and mobility (Ger-mann Molz 2007, 2012a, 2012b). Recently the journal Hospitality and Society published a special issue devoted to CouchSurfing, edited by Jennie Germann Molz, a leader in the exploration of CouchSurfing. Writing as a social researcher as well as an active member of CouchSurfing, her work demonstrates how the network mobilizes conviviality by facilitating the transition from online communi-

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3 Refer to footnote one on page 7.

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cation to face-to-face interaction. Her work further illuminates how “CouchSurf-ing replaces monetary exchange with more informal economies of trust and gen-erosity” (2012a: 89), thereby producing a neo-human economy, which I will elaborate on in the next chapter. First, I will establish how the current body of re-search exemplifies how CouchSurfing.org influences its members’ behavior, en-couraging them to embody the community’s cosmopolitan idealism of engaging with strangers, by employing technical mechanisms designed to prevent abusive users.

Although the intricacies of any given CouchSurfing connection are unique to each interaction, the implications and consequences of technologizing hospi-tality have become quite apparent. Perhaps the most unique aspect of a hospi-tality network compared with commercial hospitality is the obligation to engage in face-to-face conversation. Paula Bialski articulates this custom as a form of exchange to establish intimacy between the host and guest (2011: 254). Before this conversation, the two parties may have briefly introduced themselves, the host may give the guest a tour of the home and discuss their sleeping arrange-ments, and the guest may take a moment to decompress from the rigors of travel. At some point, however, a discussion will arise over a cup of tea, dinner, or during a stroll through town. It is at this point that the sociality unique to CouchSurfing begins to unfold. Of course, before this conversation most of what each member knows about the other is based on their CouchSurfing profile. Bial-ski notes that “the profile helps (1) a guest or host to express who they are and (2) allows the host or guest to discern if the given person will be someone they want to interact with” (2011: 257). Since first impressions have been established online, certain expectations will be fulfilled or disturbed upon meeting in person. Conversation then becomes a mechanism of rekindling those expectations so that the awkwardness of unfamiliarity fades as trust develops. As Germann Molz puts it, “Through conversation, people who do not know each other can establish a level of emotional intimacy that aligns better with the physical intimacy of shared living space” (2012a: 106). In addition to conversing and inhabiting a living space together, the act of sharing a meal, drinking together, or going for a walk with one another gives both the host and the guest personal experiences that “exemplify what CouchSurfing encounters are ‘supposed to be about’” (Germann

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Molz 2012a: 104). Because CouchSurfing is a non-commercial form of exchange, Bialski suggests that conversation becomes a form of payment:

Many of my respondents expressed the fact that as hosts they felt their visitors were using them as a hotel if they did not ‘stick around and chat’ with them. Technologies of hospitality can result in moments of closeness and intimacy, but awkwardness is another common product of these meetings, often reflecting the power relationship between host and guest (2011: 252).

This insight reflects the uncomfortable balance between exploitation and cultural exchange, and the importance of compromising and establishing boundaries to reduce the feeling (on either side) of imposition. Although safety remains a con-cern among members and non-members who are hesitant to trust in the kind-ness of strangers, the fear of social awkwardness is a more prevalent issue. Col-umnist Patricia Marx articulated this issue in a recent interview with National Pub-lic Radio regarding an article she wrote on CouchSurfing: “Everybody I talked to, and particularly my mother, didn't think I was safe, but I felt incredibly safe. I was more worried about being incessantly sociable and extremely polite all the time” (Capriglione and Gunja 2012). Anyone uncomfortable with the thought of ac-commodating strangers or irritated with the thought of having to be sociable with hosts while on vacation, will steer clear of CouchSurfing—hopefully. Otherwise, the referencing system may expose them as freeloaders or inhospitable hosts.

1.2 Couchsurfing’s Reputation System

CouchSurfing’s referencing system serves as an elaborate mechanism for re-warding and warning members. After staying with a member, you may then write a reference for that member that will appear on their profile, and they may write one for you. This represents CouchSurfing’s most direct form of reciprocity be-cause members rely on this rating system to confirm the one another’s credibility. When adding a reference for another member, you have three options available to evaluate your experience: positive, neutral, and negative. Then you must clarify in a brief statement why you chose that option. Tim Murphy, a reporter for Mother Jones magazine, artfully describes this system:

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References are the currency by which CouchSurfing transactions are conducted. It's a system that encourages aspiring travelers to host as many people as they can and treat them like kings. In Iowa one host took us up in a WWII-era plane over the Mississippi River, then bought us dinner. All he asked, he said, was that we write him nice references; he was planning on going to Europe… A negative reference is more or less a death knell. It's also an exercise in mutually assured destruction... If your host prattled on about the weather or there was no hot-water shower, keep it to yourself. Female surfers I met who'd had run-ins with creepy guys tended to keep it under wraps, explaining that, absent a serious threat, it simply wasn't worth launching the warheads (Murphy 2012).

Murphy accurately describes how the reciprocity of this system encourages fa-vorable ratings, as well as the nuanced significance of the supporting statement. Marx substantiates Murphy’s description in a piece in the New Yorker:

The most helpful security information, however, is the references that hosts and guests are encouraged to write about each other after every rendezvous. Ac-cording to a 2010 study conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan [(Adamic et al., 2011: 4)], the ratio of positive to negative evaluations is twenty-five hundred to one. Still, an astute reader can read between the lines in an as-sessment like “Jack has an awesome collection of steak knives” or “He can put out a fire really fast.” Given these safeguards, it is unlikely that anyone on CouchSurfing could get away with murder more than once. How comforting (Marx 2012).

As Marx mentions, the vast majority of references on CouchSurfing.org are posi-tive, yet the significance of the ratings lies in the descriptions accompanying each reference and the ability to read between the lines. Therefore, despite the overwhelming positivity of the references, the system effectively serves as a sur-veillance mechanism, policing the community by keeping out the troublemakers:

Reputation systems establish histories for members and make these accounts of past actions visible to all other members. Future interactions can then be estab-lished based on these reports of past behaviour. This form of interpersonal sur-veillance within the online community disciplines members’ behaviour both on-line and offline, ensuring that individuals act properly as hosts or guests and punishing them when they do not (Germann Molz 2007: 71).

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Complicating Murphy’s deduction that, “absent serious threat,” female CouchSurfers would still leave a positive review even if their male host was “creepy,” Germann Molz relates an experience of one of her informants who left a positive reference for a host even though he made an unwanted sexual advance toward her (2012: 92). She later decided that it would be in the best interest of the community to be honest about the encounter and revised her reference to neutral, exemplifying the honesty she hoped would be reflected in this reference system (Germann Molz 2012: 92). If an encounter between CouchSurfers de-volves into an awkward conversation, the risk of a damaged reputation is the fundamental safeguard preventing that interaction from becoming hostile.

The reference system is just one of three mechanisms in place on the CouchSurfing network to mitigate risk; verification and vouching are two other security systems. In order to be ‘vouched for,’ CouchSurfers can either stay with someone who has already been vouched for or host someone who has been vouched for (Germann Molz 2007: 72). This vouching system relies on a core network of vouched for members, and once you’ve been vouched for by three of these core members, you become a core member and can vouch for others (CS/Vouching 2012). Verification is an option for members with a stable living situa-tion, where for $25USD their identity is verified (Germann Molz 2007: 72). Each of these security systems reflect the paradox of CouchSurfing’s idealistic mission of “spreading tolerance” and “creating a global community”—by policing the com-munity, these systems create a boundary, filtering out undesirables, thereby cre-ating “a closed community of open-minded and like-minded people” (Germann Molz 2007: 75). By networking ‘like-minded strangers’ (Germann Molz 2012a: 94), CouchSurfing International generates a non-monetary system of exchange that nurtures conviviality between these strangers.

1.3 “Spirit of Adventure”

Dissecting the “like-mindedness” between CouchSurfers, certain attitudes and characteristics come to the fore. The cosmopolitan appreciation of travel is the most obvious shared value between CouchSurfers. Germann Molz’s infor-mants “overlay their use of the technical systems with a sense that the commu-

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nity is, in general, trustworthy because it attracts a like-minded community of strangers who are similarly outgoing, flexible, and open-minded” (2012a: 94). Corroborating this opinion, during a visit in my home in Edinburgh, a CouchSurfer suggested to me that it takes a certain “spirit of adventure” to CouchSurf.

These descriptions indicate the perceived danger in trusting strangers; as previously mentioned, without the technology involved in assuring accountability within the community, the generalized trust CouchSurfers have in common would be undermined. In fact, these security measures play an important part in the success of this online hospitality exchange network. For instance, Hospitality Club applies a “less centralized and less stringent” reference and profile system, and “there is an impression among Hospitality Club members that CouchSurf-ing’s approach to security is about fear rather than faith in strangers” (Germann Molz 2012a: 95). By mitigating the risk involved in ‘having faith’ in others, CouchSurfers’ “spirit of adventure” is partially negated because they know what they are getting themselves into. After all, a system is an organized method of doing things. Still, CouchSurfing membership dwarfs that of Hospitality Club, and if CouchSurfing’s reputation system provides the initial confidence many require before actively engaging with strangers face-to-face, then that technological bridge helps CouchSurfing with its mission to “create inspiring experiences” (CS/Mission 2012). Trusting in the hospitality of strangers without remuneration does not seem to develop organically in a society regulated by market logic – it needs to be facilitated and nurtured. In the next chapter, I will explain how digital tech-nology acts as a catalyst for reconnecting with the logic of the ‘human economy.’

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Chapter Two: A Reformulation of the Human Economy

I suggest that David Graeber’s (2011) seminal work on debt can help us to understand the kind of ‘human economy’ facilitated by CouchSurfing. Graeber examines the tragically fierce and palpably familiar history of humanity’s inception of money and the repercussions of this conception of calculable debt, arguing that credit originated before money and that the transition to pecuniary exchange systems required and justified dehumanizing violence (2011: 208). Describing this transition as one from a human economy to a commercial economy, Graeber emphasizes a juxtaposition familiar to economic anthropology: contrasting cer-tain pre- and non-western exchange systems based on the intrinsic value of so-ciality versus the extrinsic value system based on profit that has come to domi-nate economics. This notion of a human economy echoes the work of Strathern (1988) and Mauss (2002 [1923]) in acknowledging that the exchange systems that predate commercial economies were “primarily concerned not with the accumu-lation of wealth, but with the creation, destruction, and rearranging of human be-ings” (Graeber 2011: 130). Referring to the money traded in human economies as “social currencies”, Graeber explains how this currency is not used for buying and selling, but instead “to arrange marriages, establish paternity of children, head off feuds, console mourners at funerals, seek forgiveness in the case of crimes, negotiate treaties, acquire followers—almost anything but trade in yams, shovels, pigs, or jewelry” (2011: 130). The role of social currencies in human economies also expresses the invaluable and inequitable nature of each human being because no amount of money equates to the value of one’s relative (2011: 134). Graeber elaborates, “In a human economy, each person is unique, and of incomparable value, because each is a unique nexus of relations with others” (2011: 158). However, when the profit motive associated with commercial economies infects a human economy, this pricelessness that human beings em-body through their “complicated webs of relationships with others” may be dis-placed through violence: “it is only by the threat of sticks, ropes, spears, and guns that one can tear people out of those endlessly complicated webs of rela-tionship with others (sisters, friends, rivals…) that render them unique, and thus reduce them to something that can be traded” (Graeber 2011: 208).

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However, overemphasizing the distinction between the sociality of human economies and the impersonal quantification of commercial economies would be to neglect the nuanced complexity of both economies. Just as competitive val-ues altered human economies, social values persevere in commercial economies. Arguing that “communism is the foundation of all human sociability” (2011: 96; his emphasis), Graeber insists that “baseline communism” manifests itself through sociality (2011: 99). Profit-driven corporations comply with certain social obligations and sensibilities in order to demonstrate a kind of human touch to their otherwise cold, calculating bottom line. One example of this would be air-lines that offer bereavement discounts for passengers who must purchase a ticket last minute in order to fly to attend the funeral of a close relative. Of course, in order to prevent abuse, airlines require formal documentation, such as a death certificate, to verify the legitimacy of the bereavement fare. Nevertheless, even though “communism may be the foundation of all human relations…, there’s al-ways some sort of system of exchange, and usually, a system of hierarchy built on top of it” (Graeber 2011: 393). In many ways CouchSurfing epitomizes this balance between competition and cooperation.

As a company, CouchSurfing.org dominates the online hospitality ex-change industry not only in terms of members, but also in name recognition. Like Kleenex tissues or Hoover vacuums, as a brand “CouchSurfing” refers to more than just the company—it refers to the practice of staying with locals while travel-ing, regardless of whether or not the connection was established through the website. Brand recognition is a major component for most companies, and CouchSurfing’s success reflects this. Because CouchSurfing maintains a com-petitive edge in the online hospitality exchange business, it has been able to at-tract financial investors, allowing it to expand its business operations, improve the website, and create mobile applications—practices that any successful tech-nology company would emulate (Lacy 2011; Perlroth 2011; Wauters 2012; La-powsky 2012). Despite CouchSurfing International’s success in this capitalist realm, the community that CouchSurfing.org has created thrives on communistic ideals:

Hosts should never charge their CouchSurfers; anyone who does will be re-moved from the site. Most CouchSurfers do like to thank their host with a small

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gift or an act of kindness (such as cleaning the house or cooking a meal), but this is not required and should not be requested by a host -- the only thing that's ex-pected is an inspiring experience! (CS/Help 2012)

The site actively discourages hosts who attempt to charge for their accommoda-tions by canceling their membership, thereby ensuring their members interact without the tension or convenience that financial transactions entail. Awkward tension still persists throughout the introductory moments when hosts and strangers first meet; however, there are no financial obligations to worry about. The only requirement is sociability. Guests are expected to be cordial and recep-tive. Hosts are, of course, expected to be hospitable. These sociable expecta-tions elucidate how the website influences members’ behavior, requesting con-vivial and considerate interaction. Because the quantifiable repercussions of capitalism are not present, the communistic demands of Graeber’s human econ-omy take effect.

Graeber’s analysis of the role of money in the human economies that pre-date market economies reveals how the acceptance of money eventually quanti-fied and commodified the social values of the human economy:

In most human economies, money is used first and foremost to arrange mar-riages… [Bridewealth] is really an acknowledgement that one is asking for some-thing so uniquely valuable that payment of any sort would be impossible. The only appropriate payment for the gift of a woman is the gift of another woman; in the meantime, all one can do is acknowledge the outstanding debt (Graeber 2011: 131-132).

Money in a human economy, then, represents the acknowledgement of a debt that cannot be paid because each human is unique and significant to his or her own social network (Graeber 2011: 136). However, with the advent of commercial exchange in human economies, the financial reward of slave labor managed to supersede the invaluable nature of a socialized human by forcibly extracting hu-mans from their social context: “It was only when violence was brought into the equation that there was any question of buying and selling people” (Graeber 2011: 144; his emphasis). Graeber argues convincingly “that slavery, with its abil-ity to rip human beings from their contexts, to turn them into abstractions, played a key role in the rise of markets everywhere” (Graeber 2011: 165). This is signifi-

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cant because dehumanization then becomes a crucial requirement for the market economy, emphasizing profits and trivializing social solidarity. By now we are so deeply familiar and engaged with this system that, I would argue, some of our human instincts have been reprogrammed to identify and react to financial bar-gains and rip-offs rather than acknowledge the dehumanizing operations that this system requires. Furthermore, the criminalization of slavery has marginalized its practice to the point where mainstream notions of freedom now imply not having to pay.

Such a calculating logic pervades the consumer habitus, which reveals why the initial attraction toward a community like CouchSurfing derives from the logic of saving money on accommodations. Even if one objects to capitalism, as Graeber puts it, “...the logic of the marketplace has insinuated itself even into the thinking of those who are most explicitly opposed to it” (2011: 90). It is also for this reason that Graeber criticizes Marcel Mauss’ essay on “gift economies.” Be-cause economics has come to be treated as a “master discipline,” even the work of Mauss, as brilliant as it is, insists that all gifts incur a debt:

Gifts circulate… with the certainty that they will be reciprocated. Their ‘surety’ lies in the quality of the thing given, which is itself that surety. But in every possi-ble form of society it is in the nature of the gift to impose an obligatory time limit (Mauss 2002 [1923]: 45).

Graeber deflates this notion that all forms of exchange are governed by reciproc-ity by pointing out that children cannot repay all that their parents have given to them (2011: 91-92). He also draws on Levi-Bruhl’s compilation of the experiences of early missionaries in Africa, who reported peculiar encounters with “natives” from different regions of the continent. Each encounter demonstrated the same, ‘bizarre’ logic: after saving the life of an indigenous man, rather than thanking his rescuer, the man would ask for a gift from the missionary (Graeber 2011: 93). Also, during his fieldwork with the Daribi in Papua New Guinea, Roy Wagner ob-served that symmetrical exchanges were forbidden because such equalizing reciprocity would disrupt “the very motion and vitality of the ‘flow’ that makes life worthwhile” (2012: S171). For the Daribi, ‘even’ exchanges obstruct the rhythmic dynamic that keeps their reciprocal system in motion (Wagner 2012: S171). These examples reveal moral components that are unique to their own situation

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and to the logic of individuals involved. Graeber suggests that economic relations should, therefore, be framed from intrinsic moral principles, which he identifies as communism, hierarchy, and exchange (2011: 94). Both human economies and commercial economies possess these three moral principles because they “al-ways coexist everywhere. We are all communists with our closest friends, and feudal lords when dealing with children” (2011: 113-114). And so, only some forms of human interaction may be described as exchange, not all. Exchange, unlike hierarchy and communism, “implies equality, but it also implies separation” because once an exchange is completed, “the debt is cancelled… equality is re-stored and both parties can walk away and have nothing further to do with each other” (Graeber 2011: 122; his emphasis). This reinforces why the Daribi forbid symmetrical reciprocity: canceling debt terminates the sociality that transpires through exchange, thus leaving “them with nothing to talk about” (Wagner 2012: S171). Although elements of communism, hierarchy, and exchange may coexist in any situation, the reciprocal logic of exchange has dominated the other two moral principles by rationalizing mutual aid and social class. By managing the principles of communism and hierarchy, the logic of reciprocity has become syn-onymous with our perception of justice. Therefore, this tit-for-tat exchange sup-position—also know as market logic—remains a consequential, yet essential, component in the reformulation of the human economy, which CouchSurfing, as a commercial cooperative, represents.

Despite the prevalence of market logic, human economies do not sub-scribe to the impersonal precision of quantification because sociality remains the fundamental rationale for exchange rather than profit. However, our pervasive engagement with the market economy and our unconscious acceptance of the logic of reciprocity would render the presumption that participation in CouchSurf-ing demonstrates a return to a human economy an inaccurate simplification. As mentioned earlier, the exchange of generosity between strangers most often manifests itself indirectly, with the exception of guests who may feel obliged to cook a meal for their hosts or offer a gift for their hospitality. Most often, recipro-cation takes the form of a guest becoming a host after having a meaningful expe-rience, and thus wanting to return the hospitality in kind. This generalized reci-procity demonstrates the nonchalant reciprocation of the CouchSurfing commu-nity. Each positive experience generates an appreciation for the CouchSurfing

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community; this gratitude manifests as an obligation to the community, encour-aging hosts and CouchSurfers to reciprocate the generosity and felicity they have experienced by opening their homes to travelers or searching out genuinely ap-pealing locals to host them.

As an online social network, CouchSurfing is not limited to or by the online realm; rather it is amplified by it. As offline experiences accumulate and diversify, new online connections form and vice versa. Germann Molz has described CouchSurfing.org as a “hybrid community” due to this “online to offline interac-tion” as well as its requirement for “both individual-to-individual” trust and trust in technology (2012a: 84, 100). This interlacing of the digital and the analogue may be illuminated with reference to Eamonn Healy’s theorization of the neo-human in the film Waking Life. In the form of a monologue, Healy identifies the progression of humanity as telescoping to the point where a “new evolution” will manifest it-self within a generation. This new evolution “stems from two types of information, digital and analogue,” coexisting under a new paradigm “as a mutually suppor-tive, noncompetitive grouping,” whereas, under the old evolutionary paradigm, “one would die and the other would grow and dominate” (Linklater 2001; Healy 2001). Rather than being “a passive process where the individual is just at the whim of the collective,” this new evolution is an “individually centered process,” meaning each individual directs the evolution internally through his or her own preferences, thereby producing a “neo-human… with a new individuality and a new consciousness” (Linklater 2001; Healy 2001). Healy goes on to theorize that when the intelligence and the ability of this neo-human telescopes further, the rate will accelerate “until we reach a crescendo… an enormous, instantaneous fulfillment of human and neo-human potential” (Linklater 2001; Healy 2001). Al-though this technological singularity theory may seem more like science fiction than science, its importance here, regarding CouchSurfing and Graeber’s human economy, stems from the conception that the neo-human is bred out of the syn-ergy between analogue and digital. This synergy accurately reflects the reformu-lation of the human economy that CouchSurfing has produced.

To clarify further: it is the disregard for sterile, calculating logic that en-abled CouchSurfing to produce a human economy, but it is the technological component that initiates trust between strangers by adding a level of assurance

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through reputation. It is the digital that enables people to de-emphasize the po-tential danger of hosting or being hosted by strangers, thereby reconnecting with the virtues of generosity and the pleasures of conviviality. The ‘neo’ represents the digital, the ‘human’ represents the analogue, and while humans are not digital constructions, the digital is inherently a human construction and may be har-nessed to remind us what it is to be human. In other words, by connecting us with one another, digital technology reconnects us with sociality’s intrinsic value. As Miller and Horst argue, “Being human is a cultural and normative concept... [I]t is our definition of being human that mediates what the technology is, not the other way around. Technology may in turn be employed to help shift our concep-tualisation of being human” (2012: 34). Because CouchSurfing represents a new form of socializing, it may be considered part of a new type (or a return to an old type) of sociality that reflects the values of a human economy—prizing mutual aid and the inestimable value of each human being—while simultaneously existing within the binary logic of the market.

2.1 Beyond a “Moral” Economy

Part of the reason the calculating logic of the market economy is so per-vasive to the point of being instinctual throughout the world is couched in the moral vindication of debt. This is perhaps Graeber’s most significant argument: “In the secular world, morality consists largely of fulfilling our obligations to oth-ers, and we have a stubborn tendency to imagine those obligations as debts” (2011: 13). By associating debt with morality, the obligation to pay off one’s debt becomes a matter of honor. However, investigating the ancient history of codes of honor reveals that financial obligations were of little significance in comparison to obligations between people:

We speak both of debts of honor, and honoring one's debts; in fact, the transition from one to the other provides the best clue to how debts emerge from obligations; even as the notion of honor seemed to echo a defiant insistence that financial debts are not really the most important ones; an echo, here, of arguments that, like those in the Vedas and the Bible, go back to the very dawn of the market itself (Graeber 2011: 166).

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The paradox of honor becomes apparent here. Honor may reflect either the in-significance of monetary debt (characteristic of the human economy) or one’s ob-ligation to pay that debt (characteristic of the market economy). However, once the failure to pay one’s debt became equated with losing one’s honor, stripping them of their dignity became a logical consequence. Because honor in that case demands the power to strip others of their dignity, “honor is that excess dignity that must be defended with the knife or sword” (Graeber 2011: 170). The degra-dation resulting from codes of honor reveals the lack of empathy—typical of im-personal market logic—required to make dehumanizing calculations. With the in-carnation of currency, the value of money became “the value of the power to turn others into money” (Graeber 2011: 171). Graeber borrows from Nietzsche in or-der to examine the repercussions of this association between debt and honor (or lack thereof) in respect of morality:

Any system of commercial accounting, [Nietzsche] assumed, will produce creditors and debtors. In fact, he believed that it was from this very fact that human morality emerged. Note, he says, how the German word schuld means both ‘debt’ and ‘guilt.’ At first, to be in debt was simply to be guilty, and creditors delighted in pun-ishing debtors unable to repay their loans by inflicting ‘all sorts of humiliation and torture on the body of the debtor, for instance, cutting as much flesh off as seemed appropriate for the debt’ (2011: 77; his emphasis).

This link between debt and guilt ascribed a binary morality to exchange. How-ever, this right versus wrong assessment of economic activity fails to consider the deeper interpersonal and situational particularities of any given exchange, re-inforcing Graeber’s suggestion that a human economy reflects the relativity of morality given the uniqueness of the situation and of the people involved.

This correlation between morality and debt enables the further elucidation of my earlier assertion that the systems of exchange produced by CouchSurfing instantiate a neo-human economy. Reflecting on CouchSurfing’s prohibition of remuneration for accommodation, Germann Molz makes the case that this “ex-change of generosity and goodwill” demonstrates what Zygmunt Bauman re-ferred to as the ‘moral economy,’ which “produces an entirely different kind of sociality from the market economy, one based on solidarity, compassion and mu-tual sympathy rather than distant, impersonal connections” (Germann Molz

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2012a: 96). The congruence between this description of Bauman’s moral econ-omy and my delineation of the neo-human economy is evident. However, Bau-man frames his moral economy in direct opposition to the “triumph of rampant individualizing consumerism” and neoliberalism (Bauman 2007: 145), making it a defeatist depiction of the loss of solidarity in contrast to the more complicated explanations of solidarity’s incorporation of consumer logic and its proliferation within certain communities—online, offline, and hybrids of the two—that I have been documenting here. Miller tackles this condemnation of consumerism with his claim “that love is not only normative but easily dominant as the context and motivation for the bulk of actual shopping practice” (1998: 23). The complexity and unpredictability of moral logic render Bauman’s moral economy analytically insufficient. Although the moral economy’s production of a sociality “based on solidarity, compassion and mutual sympathy” typifies the sociality produced through CouchSurfing (Germann Molz 2012b: 122), it cannot account for the “‘mobile solidarity’ generated through geographically dispersed, asynchronous, and networked online and offline interactions between strangers” (Germann Molz 2012b: 131). Going beyond the neoliberal framework of the moral economy, the neo-human economy accounts for the production of both ‘traditional’ forms of solidarity as well as ‘mobile solidarity.’4

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4 Germann Molz coins this term to conceptualize social movements and solidarity that engage with digital technologies in addition to the movement of people (2012b: 131).

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Chapter Three:Exchanging Hospitality for What Exactly?

Now that the neo-human economy has been articulated as an intimate system of exchange based on establishing sociality through generosity and soli-darity with the aid of digital technology, in this chapter I examine what happens when CouchSurfers interact.

As was mentioned above, the dominance of the market economy instilled a propensity for reciprocity among individuals, and this penchant persists in the neo-human economy. The notion that generosity must be reciprocated seems honorable and considerate and follows Mauss’ rationale that with a gift comes the obligation to receive that gift, followed by the obligation to reciprocate it (2002 [1923]: 50). This logic continues to influence CouchSurfing’s neo-human economy, and is partially responsible for inspiring courteous behavior. However, rather than following a precise equipoise, reciprocation involves a more personal and cooperative tactic.

Debts within the CouchSurfing community technically do not exist be-cause hospitality cannot be repaid—neither literally nor metaphorically. As men-tioned earlier, CouchSurfing prohibits payments, and the connections the organi-zation facilitates happen mostly by chance; the right people connect at the right time under the right circumstances. The choice to have a profile has already been made, so the only volition involved are the decisions to ‘request a couch’ and the decision to accept this ‘couch request.’ Serendipity is mitigated by CouchSurf-ing’s reputation systems. However, because each CouchSurfing experience is unique, any gift given to a host is given with the understanding that the meaning of the gift is symbolic; it is not given as compensation but as appreciation. Most CouchSurfers show their appreciation to their host with food and/or beverages (CS/197 2012). Some will cook, others will provide a bottle of wine, and a few will take their host out for a meal. Other ways to express gratitude include a hand-made craft or a souvenir from one’s home country (CS/197 2197). While attend-ing a CouchSurfing activity5 in Edinburgh, I met a local wearing an interesting

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5 A major element of the CouchSurfing community are local activities held in cities all around the world that give visiting members a chance to meet up with locals and participate in whatever rec-reation has been planned.

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bracelet made of intricately woven rope through soda can tabs. He told me a CouchSurfer he had hosted three years ago made it for him. Bialski classifies these small gifts and acts—cooking, cleaning, or taking a host out for a meal—as “explicit forms of reciprocity” that are ephemeral gestures of goodwill (2011: 251). Conversation and compromise qualify as “implicit forms of reciprocity” be-cause not conversing with one’s host or refusing to compromise with a host’s schedule would be rude (Bialski 2011: 252). These implicit forms of reciprocity can, however, become an awkward price to pay. Bialski refers to a Polish CouchSurfer informant in order to illustrate how such implicit reciprocity can be-come uncomfortable. The CouchSurfer was playing the part of the listener when her host divulged intimate sexual issues she was going through. Uneasy with the direction of the conversation but not wanting to be rude, the CouchSurfer contin-ued to listen but refrained from speaking. As Bialski explains, this CouchSurfer gave up “her freedom to manoeuvre between listener and speaker… she was trapped into that role because of her obligations to her host” (2012: 252). Al-though this CouchSurfer was ‘trapped’ as an unwilling listener, most “encounters between surfers and hosts are generally short and sweet with little expectation of ongoing mutual obligation beyond the arranged stay” (Germann Molz 2012b: 123). So as awkward as any situation may become, unless it devolves into chaos, the ephemeral nature of travel renders these experiences as ‘part of the adven-ture of CouchSurfing.’

De-Jung Chen takes a different approach than Bialski in analyzing reci-procity between CouchSurfers, adopting Aafke Komter’s direct and indirect reci-procity terminology: “In direct reciprocity there are repeated encounters between two individuals while indirect reciprocity means that there are repeated encoun-ters within a group” (Chen 2011: 283). Chen observes that CouchSurfing consis-tently follows indirect reciprocity “because the exchange of hospitality is not lim-ited to two certain individuals but ranges across a group of members” (2011: 283). Drawing on the work of Germann Molz, this form of indirect reciprocity works because members of the CouchSurfing community possess the shared value of cosmopolitanism which balances “the reciprocal system between givers and receivers, hosts and surfers” (Chen 2011: 283). Like-mindedness, then, ren-ders indirect reciprocity inherent to CouchSurfing encounters since each suc-cessful encounter fosters a desire to give back to the community rather than to a

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specific host. Nevertheless, direct reciprocity, or as Bialski refers to it, explicit reciprocity, persists as an immediate reflection of gratitude, and Chen’s ethno-graphic work explains how the ancient concept of ‘ren-qing’6 “deeply influences what Taiwanese CouchSurfers give and expect in reciprocal relationships” (2011: 283). Despite the insistence by CouchSurfing.org that direct exchange is not what CouchSurfing is meant for and that no one should feel obligated to offer their couch as accommodation (CS/Help 2012), Chen observes that in addition to the deeper cultural experiences most CouchSurfers expect, Taiwanese CouchSurfers hope for a beneficial connection to emerge and will represent their own culture as a unique gift to fulfill the expectations of foreigners (2011: 289). Following the “ethos of ren-qing,” Taiwanese members use the community’s global reach to help themselves potentially find work in other countries or to im-prove their English (Chen 2011: 290). Such an instrumental perception of Couchsurfing as a status-building opportunity differs from the intense but ephemeral friendships Bialski and Germann Molz observed:

Through CouchSurfing the Taiwanese CouchSurfers are trying to build a global network at an international level, bypassing regional connections. Moreover, many Taiwanese CouchSurfers tend to maintain a longer relationship with their hosts or surfers (Chen 2011: 290).

Such an expectation of reciprocity, however, has led to Taiwanese CouchSurfers presenting themselves in quite strict accordance to their own understandings of CouchSurfing guests’ and hosts’ expectations, and because, as noted earlier, CouchSurfers are predominantly westerners, “Taiwanese strategies reinforce cer-tain stereotypes in the reciprocal system of CouchSurfing” (Chen 2011: 295). For instance, one of Chen’s informants, following the precedent set by the tourism industry in Asia, presents his Western hosts with a Chinese style folding fan—an item commonly held by Chinese women (2011: 291). Chen suggests that be-cause this gift exemplifies a feminized cultural image, it perpetuates the submis-sive and exotic ‘otherness’ that “is deeply ingrained within the discourses and subjectivities of western societies” (2011: 291). Food as a gift is another example of the acting out of cultural stereotypes by Taiwanese CouchSurfers. The tourism

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6 Ren-qing “refers to any favour or kindness received from others that should be paid back,” em-phasizing “a direct reciprocity between particular individuals to maintain a long-term relationship.” Furthermore, ren-qing exhibits an empathetic component that encourages its practitioners to give not according to what one receives, but according to the receiver’s expectations (Chen 2011: 283).

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industry throughout East Asia presents cuisine as a historical and cultural experi-ence, and many Taiwanese CouchSurfers have incorporated this marketing strat-egy into their own strategies for attracting hosts (Chen 2011: 292). Chen’s female informants used the offer to cook a ‘traditional’ Taiwanese meal as an effective lure when making couch requests. This offer complied with the reciprocity of ren-qing by fulfilling the expectations of their host—in one case Chen’s informant admitted that because Taiwanese dishes are too difficult to prepare while abroad, she traveled with Japanese curry spices and would make “Japanese curry to rep-resent the ‘local culture of Asia’” (2011: 292). Such concern for presenting them-selves in accordance with expectations causes Taiwanese CouchSurfers who adopt these strategies of reciprocity to have the inadvertent effect of entrenching certain well-worn national stereotypes.

3.1 Hospitality as a Code, Not a Gift

Although these implicit and explicit, direct and indirect forms of reciprocity suggest a gift economy underlying CouchSurfing, reciprocity is discretionary, and the aim of each encounter is simply to enjoy each other’s company. Both Mauss’ gift economy and the neo-human economy enhance solidarity (Douglas 2002 [1990]: x; Graeber 2011: 238), but as previously mentioned, the gift economy re-duces morality to tit-for-tat exchange that may potentially “slip into oneupman-ship” (Graeber 2011: 94, 106). Expounding on this critique of The Gift, Wagner dismisses Mauss’ “arbitrary subdivision of the exchange process into the obliga-tions respectively to give, receive, and reciprocate” (2012: S172), and contends that calculating hospitality as a reciprocal obligation undermines the sociality-inducing ‘vital flow’ that motivates exchange:

For when we realize that what is offered in hospitality is the gift of reception, and that what is received is the possibility of reciprocation, the ostensibly separate of-fices of host and guest turn out to be opposite sides of the same coin. And it tran-spires that all Mauss was doing was flipping that coin over and over again and calling it a different thing each time (2012: S172).

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The historical impetus of hospitality reflects the complex social values of a hu-man economy because both the generosity of the host and the reciprocity of the guest are motivated by sociality. Discussing the etymological relation between “hospitality” and “hostility” (Graeber 2011: 101; Germann Molz 2012a: 90), both Graeber and Germann Molz foreground connections between “hosts”, “hospital-ity”, “hostility”, and “hostages” in order to highlight the risks hospitality involved in the ancient world. These scholars also emphasize the potential transformation of the stranger to a friend (danger to camaraderie) through the invitation to share a meal and a home. Tom Selwyn sums this up succinctly: “Hospitality converts: strangers into familiars, enemies into friends, friends into better friends, outsiders into insiders, non-kin into kin” (2000: 19). Such transitions are essential for avoid-ing potential hostility:

The danger lies, precisely, in the possibility that the opportunity and promise of a relationship will simply not be taken up, that the stranger will remain a stranger, and that the transformative processes which acts of hospitality put in motion will simply wither away before they have been given a chance to take root (Selwyn 2000: 34).

In Selwyn’s analysis of hospitality, reciprocation plays a key factor in establishing a relationship because once a guest reciprocates for hospitality with a gift, chore, or simple “thanks”, then the potential threat has been avoided. For Selwyn then, hospitality fosters sociality rather than self-interest, reflecting the same commu-nist principle as the neo-human economy.

If, as Graeber argues, ‘baseline communism’ is the “ground of all human social life,” then to offer fellowship to a stranger not only helps to avoid danger but, so to speak, reproduces sociality, which illuminates why sharing a meal is a common and important host-guest experience (Graeber 2011: 101). The act of breaking bread is a fundamental ritual signifying inclusion into a group, as well as signifying the exclusion of those who should not partake in this ritual. Selwyn borrows from Mary Douglas to make this point:

The moral framework established by proper obedience to the food laws serves to bind the members of a family to each other and the family to the wider commu-nity whose members share the code. It also separates both from others who do not share the code (Selwyn 2000: 28).

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By sharing meals together, members of the CouchSurfing community affirm their ties to the mission and ethos (or code) of CouchSurfing: “Each meeting between CouchSurfing members contributes to the ‘critical mass’ that the organization deems necessary to ‘create a better world’” (Germann Molz 2012b: 133), and the intimacy accompanying a shared meal reflects how this website influences be-havior, encouraging consideration and conviviality. Graeber notes that the ancient law of hospitality “insisted that any traveler must be fed, given shelter, and treated as an honored guest—but only for a certain length of time” (2011: 118). When guests overstay their welcome, they may become (or be perceived as) parasitic, exploiting the law of hospitality, losing honor, and accruing debt. Once again, the CouchSurfing reputation system ensures that parasitic individuals are accounted for, so that when hospitality is exchanged between members, both parties will most likely adhere to the code of CouchSurfing by simply enjoying each other’s company.

The code of CouchSurfing may be seen as an analytically interesting vari-ant of the ancient law of hospitality. Rather than losing one’s freedom and be-coming a slave to a host after exploiting the host’s hospitality, hosts instead leave a negative reference, thereby shaming that user so that the rest of the community will take note. As one CouchSurfer surmised, “‘Everyone is afraid to get a nega-tive message back on their profile. You reap what you sow’” (Steylaerts and Dubhghaill 2011: 273). The rarity of negative references attests to the success of the reputation system’s transparency. Also, the intimacy that transpires between CouchSurfers reflects the courteous discourse that dignifies traditional forms of hospitality. According to Douglas, “Each meal carries something of the meaning of the other meals; each meal is something of a structured social event which structures others in its own image” (1972: 69). Because meals are representative of the formal feasts that have preceded them, a shared meal between strangers draws on these past moments of intimate socializing (Selwyn 2000: 33). In my own home when hosting CouchSurfers, my fiancée and I sit around the table with our guests for each meal, partaking in conversation as we eat. On our own the two of us usually eat seated on the couch, sometimes watching or listening to a program. Meals at the table are reserved for romantic dinners or for dinner par-ties. Having hosted over a dozen CouchSurfers throughout the past year I am in

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a position to confirm that dinner is indeed the most transformative process be-cause humor, anecdotes, and philosophies come alive, binding new relationships that, while ephemeral, are emotionally intense. This may be because of the aforementioned like-mindedness that CouchSurfers share, but the experience is nonetheless tangible and stimulating.

3.2 Re-Imagining Hospitality

CouchSurfing’s reproduction of mealtime customs reflects the commu-nity’s hybrid nature and neo-human economy. As was discussed earlier, the dan-ger of hosting a stranger is mitigated by digital technologies, which thus allow for new opportunities of hospitality to emerge. These technological systems have the counterintuitive effect of enabling a community of openminded travelers to thrive by excluding those who would not (or cannot) conform to this particular code of hospitality. This contradiction has been analyzed by Germann Molz and ex-panded upon by the ethnographic work of Chen and Sonja Buchberger. By unit-ing different people throughout the world by appealing to their shared interests, such as traveling, learning about other cultures, and eating foreign cuisine, CouchSurfing fulfills the expectations of members who seek “differences that are consumable and communal” (Germann Molz 2007: 77; her emphasis). However, these ‘differences’ are particular, and those who do not fit this ‘strangers like us’ (Germann Molz 2012a: 94) code are excluded:

Clearly, people who do not already have the financial means to travel, a place to host other travellers or the political right to mobility are not welcome to partici-pate in the club…. Guests who might become parasites or enemies represent the ‘wrong’ kind of difference; a difference that is not easily consumed over a glass of wine or a late night conversation in someone’s living room (Germann Molz 2007: 78).

To engage with CouchSurfing, then, requires a passport, financial independence, and a sociable demeanor. Without access to the internet, those who may very well have the right attitude required to participate in CouchSurfing cannot offer their unique cultural presence to the community. These requirements have the important consequence of reforming traditional hospitality customs.

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A revealing example of this consequence are depictions of CouchSurfing as a form of deviant behavior among non-members in Morocco. As in many Arab countries, non-commercial hospitality in Morocco is “directly linked to the family” (Buchberger 2011: 306). From the cordial reception to the tearful departure, a guest’s visit is a carefully formalized ordeal, adhering to moral conventions and religious convictions (Buchberger 2011: 304, 307). Traditionally, the duties of the host are divided between family members, depending on the age and gender of each member (Buchberger 2011: 306). As Sonja Buchberger observes, “In CouchSurfing, hospitality becomes individualized, with single men in their 20s or early 30s taking the role of the host alone” (2011: 306). This shift produces a schism within Moroccan communities because the hospitality a Moroccan family provides is a source of pride (2011: 306). However, young Moroccans (mostly men7) who wish to participate in CouchSurfing’s hospitality exchange often do not have the consent of their parents. As Buchberger explains:

Several parents do not allow their sons to host foreigners because of fear that the neighbours could ‘talk’… Among the most widespread conjectures are the assumption that the family is running an unauthorized maison d’hôtes/‘guest house’, that the young man works as faux guide (tourist guide without conces-sion or training) or tries to befriend foreign females to marry and get the chance to leave Morocco (2011: 304).

Moreover, the structure of formal Moroccan hospitality protocols negates the like-mindedness component that fosters conviviality. Buchberger elaborates:

‘You don’t feel free’, is a usual formulation among Moroccan members to de-scribe this situation. In hosting in single households, in contrast, there is more ‘freedom’ and ‘fun’. Obligatory small talk with all relatives and the stress of wor-rying about what family members might think and say about the foreign guests’ dress and behavior falls away. (2011: 307).

Buchberger’s ethnographic observations reflect the transformation hospitality undergoes when re-engineered through a social network. This work also demon-

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7 Young women in Morocco experience a much more strict form of supervision from their families than young men, who have more freedom to use the internet and spend time with friends outside of the home without serious interrogation (Buchberger 2011: 301).

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strates an antinomy between CouchSurfing’s claim to produce a more authentic cultural experience and its discordance vis-à-vis traditional Moroccan hospitality. The most significant revelation in Buchberger’s work, however, is how the neo-human economy struggles to coexist within this non-western society, in which both market logic and religious moral conventions dominate.

Aspersions spread through gossip in Moroccan neighborhoods may dam-age the reputation of whomever that gossip denounces. Central to the risk young Moroccans face in hosting strangers from CouchSurfing are misunderstandings concerning how CouchSurfing functions. Such misunderstandings are not nec-essarily unique to this part of the world; however, the fact that the main risk hosts face derives from overly inquisitive neighbors rather than the strangers them-selves sheds light on a fascinating aspect of the neo-human economy. Graeber notes that the development of the market in the Middle East during the Middle Ages thrived once the mercantile classes abandoned usury (2011: 282). This en-abled merchants “to become—alongside religious teachers—the effective lead-ers of their communities: communities are still seen as organized, to a large ex-tent, around the twin poles of mosque and bazaar” (Graeber 2011: 282). Such a connection between Islam and the market underscores the unique morality re-flected in quotidian economic activity in Morocco. CouchSurfing’s neo-human economy disrupts the symbiosis between religion and commerce. An experience described by Buchberger aptly depicts this disruption. While riding with a Moroc-can CouchSurfer on his moped, two men on a more powerful scooter ridiculed them as they rode past saying, “‘Look! He has a gawriyya (western woman) and a snetr (i.e. a Peugeot 103 scooter)!” (2011: 311). In Morocco being friends with a foreigner reflects upper class status, and “according to these assumptions, the host needs to have certain financial means to live up to expectations of generous serving of food, drink and environment” (2011: 311). Furthermore, the notion of foreigners “being received and entertained without direct monetary interaction taking place might seem surprising and peculiar to many Moroccans” (2011: 312). The decision made by many Moroccan members to neglect explaining how CouchSurfing works further complicates the matter. Buchberger explains the rea-soning of these Moroccan members:

They assume right from the start that computer-mediated hospitality exchange is incomprehensible to their families and neighbours, because it clashes too vehe-

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mently with local understandings of morality regarding gender relations and cultural conventions that one could not possibly offer these services without expecting fi-nancial profit or at least some form of remuneration from the allegedly wealthier guwwar[8] tourists. (2011: 312).

‘Local understandings of morality regarding gender relations’ are significant here because they imply sexual intentions: “Hosting foreign women always indicates a sexual liaison to outside observers” (Buchberger 2011: 312). This conflation be-tween CouchSurfing and sexual impropriety echoes Graeber’s suggestion that the market economy erroneously trivializes morality and human relations into quantifiable transactions rather than cooperative engagements (2011: 177). The inaccuracy of these market-tainted moral codes are further reflected in the ca-thartic gossip between Moroccan members and their guests:

The practice of gossiping about the ‘malign neighbour’ in front of foreign CouchSurf-ers provides a space for Moroccan members to portray themselves as ‘open-minded’ and ‘modern’, by distinguishing themselves from the ‘narrow-minded’ neighbour as the backward gossip, who has no idea about their lives and aspirations and tends to ‘sexualize the whole thing’ (2011: 310).

This distinction between the ‘backwards’ neighbor and the ‘modern’ host eluci-dates how the neo-human economy transcends the objectification of women as sexual commodities. Of course, sexual tension still (and will always) exists. Buchberger’s observation that male CouchSurfers have more difficulty finding hosts in Moroccan than females evinces this sexual tension (2011: 300). How-ever, the reputation system upholds the values of the CouchSurfing community just as well in Morocco, ensuring each meeting is met with the cosmopolitan ex-pectations of friendship and cultural exchange, and relegating sex and romance to fortuity.

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8 Guwwar is “the most widespread term for ‘western’ tourists today...” (Buchberger 2011: 300).

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Chapter Four: Digitizing Social Capital

While discussing CouchSurfing with a close friend of mine who has CouchSurfed extensively throughout Europe, I brought up Tim Murphy’s analogy that “references are the currency by which CouchSurfing transactions are con-ducted” (2012). Expanding on this analogy, my friend mentioned that the refer-ences serve as a bank account of sorts, and each time you message a member about surfing at their place, they check your account to make sure you have not just enough credit, but positive credit. The really interesting part of this expanded analogy is this: the credit that positive references represent can be spent, but cannot be depleted. References remain on your profile for the duration of your membership in the CouchSurfing community. This reputation system, then, dem-onstrates the digitization of social capital.

This digital manifestation of social capital follows the argument made ear-lier regarding how technologizing reputation systems initiates the process of trusting strangers and welcoming them into one’s life. By broadening this reputa-tion system to represent digitized social capital, it may be perceived as a form of currency—as Murphy articulated—which may be accumulated and leveraged like money. However, unlike money, digitized social capital develops directly from personal relationships forged through communication, cooperation, and convivi-ality. This difference further substantiates the unique hybridity of the neo-human economy. As examined before, Graeber describes the transition from human economies to commercial economies as fraught with moral dilemmas (2011: 177). The work of Georg Simmel reinforces Graeber’s assessment of this transi-tion. As Simmel insightfully insists:

Money offers us the only opportunity to date for a unity which eliminates everything personal and specific, a form of unification that we take completely for granted to-day, but which represents one of the most enormous changes and advances of cul-ture…. Through the necessity of exchanging it and receiving definitive concrete val-ues for it, money creates an extremely strong bond among the members of an eco-nomic circle. Precisely because it cannot be consumed directly, it refers people to others, from whom one can obtain what is actually to be consumed…. And by mak-ing the division of production possible, money inevitably ties people together, for now everyone is working for the other, and only the work of all creates the compre-

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hensive economic unity which supplements the one-sided production of the individ-ual (1997: 246).

The transition from a direct person-to-person connection to the indirect and ex-ponential connections of each individual to all others through the acceptance of money, initiated a separation between the value people accrued through their so-cial network and the value they accumulated through labor. Germann Molz cites Simmel as well when she suggests that systems of credit act as a defensive strategy, preventing the exhaustive and risky task of engaging in meaningful con-versation when interacting with strangers: “Placing trust in currency rather than in one another… allows strangers to interact while remaining detached from each other” (Germann Molz 2012a: 87). Unfortunately for Simmel, once money be-comes the ultimate motivation for individuals, they have entered a circuit of dis-satisfaction because money’s ability to equate anything renders life full of endless equations, calculations, conversions, and depreciations (1997: 249). The feelings of security and ‘freedom’ that money provides must be constantly restored with more money (Simmel 1997: 252). Graeber admits that “the the ability to pull out a wallet full of banknotes that are unconditionally one's own can be a compelling form of freedom,” but he contends that “it is rooted in a deeply flawed, even per-verse, conception of human freedom” (2011: 355). As dreary as these sentiments may seem, they hinge on money’s inability to sustain individual satisfaction and its inability to inspire human sociality. The profit motive triggered by the acquisi-tion of money is unsustainable; it creates a culture that seeks constant improve-ment, straining in vain to maintain its satisfaction (Simmel 1997: 235). Such is the price of financial capital. Social capital, alternatively, accrues profits through membership rather than production, making solidarity the basis of its value (Bourdieu 2004 [1983]: 22).

By subscribing to a group, the members of that group generate credit through their combined collective capital, and according to Pierre Bourdieu, this aggregation of resources for the mutual benefit of the collective represents social capital (2004 [1983]: 21). Pooling resources also reflects CouchSurfing’s ‘utopian ideal’ of ‘forging a global community’ by sharing one’s home with strangers (Germann Molz 2007: 77). Rather than titles of nobility and authority demonstrat-ing ‘concentrated social capital’ as Bourdieu posited, social capital among CouchSurfers depends on different factors. Those with the most positive refer-

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ences are clearly actively engaged with the community. Some members may vol-untarily become official CouchSurfing ambassadors. These members are recog-nized by the organization as community leaders, who organize events, welcome new members, answer questions, and actively participate in CouchSurfing (CS/Ambassador 2012). Not everyone can become an ambassador, but anyone can create and attend events or share their knowledge and experience on the web-site’s group forums, in addition to hosting and surfing. Attending CouchSurfing events is a great opportunity to connect with sev-eral members in one setting in order to build social capital, particularly if you are new to CouchSurfing and lack references. While in Istanbul, my fiancée and I at-tended a weekly CouchSurfing event with her family. We learned of the event through her brother who received a message from a local in Istanbul (I will refer to him as Samir). When you log into your account, CouchSurfing will show that you are online and the current city you are in so that other members can invite you to attend local activities. This is done at the discretion of the local, and in our case, Samir was an incredibly friendly gentleman, who regularly invites travelers to these weekly events. We all met that evening at a park next to a boardwalk on the water in Kadiköy, Istanbul. Dozens of CouchSurfers showed up, and after talking with a few, I realized just how ‘normal’ this scene was. Many spoke about an amazing boat party that had been held the weekend prior and was organized through CouchSurfing. Samir jokingly confessed that he invites as many travelers as possible because if he didn’t, these get-togethers would be hardly as interest-ing. This cosmopolitan desire corresponds to one of Bialski’s Polish informants who admitted to her that he declined a CouchSurfer from Poland because “‘they’re not different enough’” (2011: 251). Sure enough, after connecting online the next day, we discovered Samir was somewhat of a CouchSurfing icon with more friends (840) and references (532) than any of us had ever seen. (In com-parison, my profile has half a dozen friends and thirteen references.) Of course, attaining extensive digitized social capital does not guarantee that your couch request will always be accepted when you travel. The preferences and interests you list on your profile, your personal description, and, as mentioned before, ser-endipity all factor into a successful CouchSurf. Still, a lack of CouchSurfing refer-ences equates to a lack of digitized social capital, and therefore no record of

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trust, which in most cases will result in having to pursue another means of ac-commodation.

4.1 When Social Capital and Fiscal Capital Collide

The calculability of financial capital and the predominance of market logic attempt to ascribe purchasing power to digitized social capital. Simmel identifies the prevalence of market logic as the money economy’s induction of calculated precision into everyday life, to the point where anything of value is allocated a monetary valuation (Simmel 1997: 252). Bourdieu acknowledges that both cul-tural and social capital are convertible into economic capital in certain conditions (2004 [1983]: 16). However, he also recognizes that sociality produces social capital, which then reproduces sociality (Bourdieu 2004 [1983]: 22). With this rec-ognition, Bourdieu’s assessment that under ‘certain conditions’ social capital may be converted into economic capital actually validates Graeber’s postulation that, along with exchange, communism and hierarchy are moral principles that develop economic relations (2011: 94). Bourdieu suggested that when concen-trated social capital constructs economic capital, it becomes institutionalized into nobility (2004 [1983]: 16, 24), thereby verifying hierarchy as an economic moral principle. Also, Bourdieu’s acknowledgment of social capital’s dependence on the collective cooperation of a group—pooling resources, forming a social net-work, and achieving goals—reflects the communist component of Graeber’s economic model.

The fusion of Graeber’s three moral principles of economic relations and Bourdieu’s understanding of social capital reveals interesting implications when applying it to CouchSurfing’s economic model. According to Bourdieu,

Exchange [of gifts, words, women, etc.] transforms the things exchanged into signs of recognition and, through the mutual recognition and the recognition of group membership which it implies, re-produces the group (2004 [1983]: 22).

As mentioned before, explicit forms of reciprocity in CouchSurfing take the form as small gifts, food, and favors as well as hospitality. This exchange is not offset-ting, it is symbolic. These gestures are recognized as emblematic of the commu-nity’s like-mindedness, and along with the implicit forms of exchange, such as

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conversation, courtesy and conviviality, they propel and expand the community’s cosmopolitan ideals. This communistic composition of exchange reproduces so-ciality through inspiring experiences; however this would not be possible without the social network’s technical infrastructure. Bourdieu goes on:

The reproduction of social capital presupposes an unceasing effort of sociability, a continuous series of exchanges in which recognition is endlessly affirmed and reaf-firmed. This work, which implies expenditure of time and energy and so, directly or indirectly, of economic capital, is not profitable or even conceivable unless one in-vests in it a specific competence (knowledge of genealogical relationships and of real connections and skill at using them, etc.) and an acquired disposition to acquire and maintain this competence... (2004 [1983]: 22-23).

Here we may begin to examine the necessary role the organization plays in facili-tating the sociality that CouchSurfing produces (and reproduces). This history of the website reflects the initial catalyst that accelerated the formation and expo-nential expansion the community. CouchSurfing’s conception developed after co-founder, Casey Fenton, acquired an inexpensive flight to Reykjavik, but had no place to stay. He decided to send a mass email to University of Reykjavik stu-dents in hopes of finding someone to host him (Germann Molz 2011: 217). Ac-cording to the website, “He received so many offers of hospitality that he realized there was a community out there hungry for a human-centered approach to travel” (CS/Media_FAQ 2012). This experience would spawn the most successful hospitality exchange network to date. However, the work of the founders of this hybrid network relies on technology to facilitate personal encounters and inspir-ing experiences, and of course, this technology requires time and energy as well as ‘economic capital’ to implement. This illuminates the hierarchical structure that oversees CouchSurfing’s communist hospitality exchange. Over the course of the conclusion, I will examine how this overall system has been working and the conflicts of interest that arise when an economic model based simply on sociality becomes an investment opportunity.

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CONCLUSION: Corporatizing CouchSurfing

I opened this dissertation discussing Facebook, which may now seem peripheral since CouchSurfing was the focus of this work. However, Facebook’s dominance as the most successful social media platform to date along with its recent intro-duction into the stock market renders it a macroscopic example of what the ‘money economy’—as Simmel referred to it—does to a social network.

At the time Germann Molz wrote her piece, “Solidarity on the Move” (2012b), CouchSurfing was operating as a nonprofit organization. In August 2011, CouchSurfing published an article in their online newsletter informing their users they were becoming a certified B Corporation. The B stands for “benefit,” and this status legally binds companies to provide goods and services with a com-mitment to social and environmental responsibility and fair working conditions by subordinating the profit motive (CS/144 2011; Alperovitz 2011). In theory this status prevents investors and stockholders from suing the CEO for not adhering to profit-making strategies (Alperovitz 2011). However, the backlash from mem-bers of the CouchSurfing community was swift. A discussion group titled “We Are Against CS Becoming a For-Profit Organization” sprung up in CouchSurfing’s forum section (Marx 2012; CS/Group 2011). Denouncing the move to a for-profit model, the group declared: “CS was born as a community, built and strengthened by many volunteers spirited members and now turned into a corporation” (CS/Group 2011; their emphasis). This reaction is understandable considering many members felt that by participating in an alternative form of exchange, they were resisting the domination of consumer-driven commercialism. Germann Molz ex-presses this sentiment in her work: “For a few respondents, Couchsurfing’s status as a non-profit organization and its ability to facilitate a non-commercial form of exchange between strangers represented a resistance to what they saw as a general corporatization of social life” (2012b: 124). In her article, Marx points out that this anti-corporate sentiment fails to account for the expense of hiring computer engineers as well as the fact that this B corporation status “is contrac-tually required to be socially and environmentally responsible” (2012). Attempting to assuage this disgruntled group of CouchSurfers, co-founder Casey Fenton published an open letter in the online newsletter, explaining that the organization

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had “tried hard for many years to be certified as a 501c(3) non-profit, but ulti-mately the US government didn’t accept that hosting and surfing are charitable activities” (Fenton 2011). Fenton goes on in the letter to reassure that CouchSurf-ing will remain as committed to their mission to make the world a better place and that they are not “actually ‘for’ profit” because money is still not the goal of the organization (Fenton 2011). Despite these reassurances, this new for-(some)-profit model poses new questions, such as how exactly does one monetize a system based on the exchange of generosity?

The news that CouchSurfing would no longer be operating as a nonprofit organization was accompanied with the announcement that the organization had secured a $7.6 million round of financing from Benchmark Capital and Omidyar Network (Perlroth 2011; Lapowsky 2012; Lacy 2012). Discussing CouchSurfing’s transition, Nicole Perlroth alluded to the dot-com bubble to the late 1990s, speculating that Silicon Valley may be “in the midst of a new technology bubble” (2011). Perlroth’s article ends with a quote from Matt Cohler of Benchmark Capi-tal comparing CouchSurfing to a young Facebook, which, just as CouchSurfing is now, was popular among college students before it burgeoned (Perlroth 2011). However, unlike Facebook, CouchSurfing is not (or has not been) a tool for cor-porate marketing. In fact, the neo-human economy CouchSurfing produced un-dermines corporatism: “Every time CouchSurfing members exchange generosity rather than money, they are participating in broader claims against corporate cul-tural governance” (Germann Molz 2012a: 100). This indicates an inherent conflict of interest between the CouchSurfing community and its investors.

Since it transitioned to a certified B Corporation, CouchSurfing has con-tinued to grow, and little about the functionality of the website has changed (aside from appearing much sleeker). However, as the executives managing CouchSurfing pursue new potential streams of revenue, changes will most likely result. As Miller and Horst point out, “the most astonishing feature of digital cul-ture is not actually this speed of technical innovation, but rather the speed by which society takes all of these for granted and creates normative conditions for their use” (2012: 32). By normalizing these changes, users fail to notice the grad-ual imposition of corporate interests. This gradual integration of corporatism evokes the evolution of the internet from a potential utopia to a commercial inno-

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vation, making Perloth’s allusion to the dot-com bubble all the more disconcert-ing.

By invoking this early history of the internet in several of her publications on CouchSurfing, Germann Molz indicates that the CouchSurfing community represents a return to the unifying potential the internet once represented. How-ever, with the end of CouchSurfing’s nonprofit era, this return to the “original uto-pian promise of the Internet” is now contingent on the website’s ability to com-pete with other hospitality exchange networks (Germann Molz 2012a: 100). This new reality renders Germann Molz’s suggestion quite poignant:

By rejecting profit models and commercial exchange, CouchSurfing reasserts the “true” intentions of the Internet: to create a global village of strangers. This non-commercial ethos echoes some of the rhetoric surrounding the Internet and the vir-tual communities that were forming on the bulletin boards and multi-user domains in the early 1990s. Utopian thinkers at the time suggested that virtual communities could be more democratic and inclusive (2012b: 125).

Examining a similar sentiment from the earlier work of Germann Molz reflects the potential disaster that may develop in the form of a second technology bubble bursting, and the strange irony that such a burst would reveal:

…Casey [Fenton], the founder of CouchSurfing.com, was inspired to create his non-commercial site after becoming disillusioned by his lucrative career in software de-velopment during the dot-com boom (2007: 73).

In addition to CouchSurfing’s unmatched success, the pervasiveness of market logic is responsible for the corporatizing of CouchSurfing. In their analysis of CouchSurfing, Vicky Steylaerts and Sean O’Dubhghaill concisely explain that “CouchSurfing represents a booming market,” adding that, “The phenomenon blends in with recent developments in the tourist industry, among and between individual travellers and in the search for ‘meaningful’, less commercially medi-ated experiences” (Steylaerts and O’Dubhghaill 2011: 262). This market grows with each successful CouchSurfing experience inspiring others to join the com-munity. But with success comes competition. Perlroth notes in her article on CouchSurfing’s injection of funding, that another online hospitality exchange network, Tripping.com, had secured over a million dollars in funding a month

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prior, and she speculates that perhaps “CouchSurfing developed a sudden inferi-ority complex upon hearing the news that its smaller, new, for-profit rival was suddenly flush with cash” (2011). Of course, such speculation also propagates the market logic that permeates western culture, further undermining certain neo-human economies that are still in their infancy.

The normalization of the gradual corporatization of CouchSurfing may well have been the inevitable (if not predictable) outcome to such a community. The “growth of global-ethical awareness” over the past few decades has inspired travelers to seek a less commodified form of hospitality, desiring instead the per-sonalized experience that CouchSurfing provides (Steylaerts and O’Dubhghaill 2011: 264). However, the incorporation of technology by individuals who share this aspiration of ‘authentic’ travel experiences has formalized the process of producing these authentic experiences (Steylaerts and O’Dubhghaill 2011: 276). Discussing CouchSurfing, Steylaerts and O’Durhghaill point out, “As seminal as [the social networking aspect is], it is also in jeopardy (or viewed as in jeopardy) by coming under the rubric of marketers, or others concerned with formalizing the experience” (2011: 269). Formalization enables monetization, and just as the utopian vision that accompanied the internet at its inception succumbed to the innovation of commercial practices, the potential of the sociality-spawning neo-human economy becomes another market for brand managers to cater to. In-sights from Miller and Horst render this outcome nearly predictable: “The internet constantly promises new forms of openness, which are almost immediately fol-lowed by calls for new constraints and controls, expressing our more general ambivalence towards the experience of freedom” (2012: 24). Thus as CouchSurf-ing’s model expands to connect more members and facilitate more inspiring ex-periences, the system begins to attract the attention of those who fear that this new model of hospitality poses a threat to either their bottom line or to their re-pressed society.

Borrowing from Graeber, this struggle may be referred to as a ‘crisis of in-clusion’ (2011: 375). Graeber used this term to signify the repercussions of allow-ing anyone, including minorities and women, to participate in a capitalist system that protected the rights of workers, guaranteed social benefits, and ensured ac-cess to affordable public educational institutions (2011: 373). Essentially, Graeber

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argues that this form of regulated capitalism could no longer sustain itself once marginalized citizens began demanding the same benefits as white, working-class citizens. As a result, the neo-liberal agenda replaced this regulated form of capitalism. The ongoing struggle between free-market capitalism and a social democratic form of capitalism aptly reflects the reoccurring battles taking place in the digital realm. Graeber’s assessment summarizes this nicely:

Just as markets, when allowed to drift entirely free from their violent origins, invaria-bly begin to grow into something different, into networks of honor, trust, and mutual connectedness, so does the maintenance of systems of coercion constantly do the opposite: turn the products of human cooperation, creativity, devotion, love, and trust back into numbers once again. (2011: 381)

The neo-human economy that the CouchSurfing community produced, persists because members enjoy the social benefits of this exchange—fiscal benefits are absent. The credibility of this social network propagates through the efficacy of its reputation system, which influences its members’ behavior by encouraging the cosmopolitan ideals of consideration and conviviality toward strangers. By exchanging generosity and cooperation, CouchSurfers exhibit a genuine trust and camaraderie that attracts new members, who share this openminded atti-tude. Although the community is closed to those lacking internet access, political mobility, financial competence, and a sociable disposition, these requirements are general enough to enable the community to thrive. As the community grows, its neo-human economy formalizes: each auspicious experience inspires new and potential members to embrace a more authentic cultural experience while traveling, to embody a cosmopolitan lifestyle by hosting travelers, or to discover a city’s unique charm by attending local CouchSurfing events. These aspects propel CouchSurfing’s popularity, and hence, its marketability. Marketability has attracted investors, who then speculate about the potential profitability of the formalized sociality that has transpired through CouchSurfing. In short, CouchSurfing’s ability to inspire genuine human connections is responsible for its corporatization. CouchSurfing is not the only hospitality network to begin partnering with profit-driven companies. Hospitality Club recently announced it would begin work-ing with Airbnb, a commercial company that enables host users to rent spare

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rooms, apartments, or houses to travelers and allows travel users to rent accom-modations from hosts. With this new partnership, Airbnb users will now have the additional option to stay with local Hospitality Club members. However, when staying with Hospitality Club members, the fee Airbnb users pay will be donated to Hospitality Club, rather than directly compensating the host (HospitalityClub/Airbnb 2012). The success of this new venture is yet to be determined, as the partnership has only recently been forged. But the implications are clear: these websites, as noble as their missions may be, require cash to function. Because hospitality exchange is now a thriving market rather than a marginal movement, each hospitality exchange network must invest in improving user experience9 in order to remain relevant and valuable. Nevertheless, as Steylaerts and O’Dubhghaill indicated, the growth of this ‘authentic cultural experience’ market developed as a reaction against the homogeneity of commercial hospitality; thus users of hospitality exchange networks maintain a ‘global-ethical awareness’ that is unique to this new market (2011: 264).

A cynic may observe CouchSurfing’s corporatization as evidence of Grae-ber’s conclusion that capitalism appropriates ‘the products of human coopera-tion’ into a calculable commodity. Once commodified, CouchSurfing experiences will lose the the ‘spirit of adventure’ that once enthused its members. Conversely, an optimist will note that the neo-human economy has taken root. The seeds may have been planted with the conception of Servas in 1949, but CouchSurf-ing’s success reflects a common desire to partake in an alternative form of ex-change. After all, CouchSurfing has always coexisted with market forces. Build-ing and maintaining the technical infrastructure that connects CouchSurfers re-quired funding. Without revenue, the neo-human economy that this social net-work produced would lack the digital means to initiate trust between strangers. Therefore, rather than existing outside of the money economy, the neo-human economy coexists with the money economy. If Graeber is correct and commu-nism is ‘the foundation of all human relations’ (2011: 96), then we may be wit-nessing something similar to Healy’s neo-human theory gradually develop. If Facebook’s success illustrates people’s unending desire to share information with others, then CouchSurfing’s success demonstrates our desire to share an

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9 User experience in the case of hospitality exchange networks entails catalyzing convivial social-ity.

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authentic slice of our lives with one another. As these meaningful encounters continue to aggregate, something will eventually begin to shift. In order to coexist with the neo-human economy, the money economy may have to yield its com-petitive tenet. If that is the case, Healy’s theory of a new paradigm in which ana-logue and digital coexist “as a mutually supportive, noncompetitive grouping” may be reinterpreted and applied to the coexistence of the neo-human economy and the money economy. As neo-human economies gradually infiltrate money economies, the moral principle Graeber defined as ‘exchange’ will be de-emphasized. Rather than managing Graeber’s two other moral principles—hier-archy and communism—exchange and its logic of reciprocity will work in col-laboration with hierarchy and communism to enhance sociality.

The B corporation may be an early incarnation of this potential economic paradigm shift. By legalizing the subordination of profit to enhance social and en-vironmental goals (Alperovitz 2011: 20), this new corporate model represents a tangible reaction to the social, environmental, and economic turmoil resulting from the money economy (Alperovitz 2011:24). By appropriating market logic and discarding the competitive gumption of this logic, neo-human economics pur-sues the interests of many at the expense of concentrated wealth. Although the calculable profitability of B corporations may be quantitatively low, by emphasiz-ing sociality over profitability, the risks of economic turmoil are mitigated. The success of CouchSurfing, and even Facebook, demonstrates the persistent hu-man desire for convivial connectivity. This desire echoes Miller’s ethnographic work on shopping, which “redirect[s] attention from shopping as an expression of individual subjectivity and identity to an expression of kinship and other relation-ships” (1998: 35). By facilitating sharing, social networks reflect our desire to so-cialize. If investors fail to understand that the value of these social networks de-rives not from commercialization but from the expansion of sociality, then capital-izing on popular social networks for short-term profits will lead to a speculative bubble—as Perlroth insinuated. However, investing with the intention of support-ing of the convivial mission of a social network by focusing on improving the service for users—without the expectation of immediate capitalization—would, in effect, finance social prosperity, which may then lead to economic prosperity.

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