Ao vaivém do ócio: circulação e tradução da rede de dormir no comércio eletrônico

Abstract

A hammock hanging between two palm trees facing a tropical sea, an image that seems to be enough to remember the need for a break and the pleasure of leisure. This study deals with the diversity of hammocks offered in e-commerce, their history, forms and materials; Deals with the companies that offer hammocks and with the online stores where they can be bought; It also deals with those who make hammocks and those who use them; And deals mainly with the contemporary relations between leisure and the hammock. This piece of furniture, initially developed by pre-Columbian indigenous groups, began to be associated with laziness, vagrancy, and the idle life of the tropics from contacts with European settlers. A trend smoothed by popular culture and appropriated by advertising images of the mass industry. This study was informed by six e-commerce companies that sell hammocks to customers around the world. The companies were selected based on the relevance and diversity of the offer made, covering six countries and three languages. A description of corporate strategies, online environments and hammocks was made. E-commerce is configured as a representative practice of globalization and contemporary information and communication technologies. Multimedia content and comments from other users provide a virtual experience of the physical hammock, an online resource where the user informs, compares, chooses and becomes a customer. The hammocks are presented as sophisticated cultural goods, an object capable of realizing the moments of rest and relaxation so scarce in this accelerated and compressed world. The circulated history of the hammock portrays the material and symbolic plasticity of this furniture, as well as human capacity, and by extension of industry and the global market, to re-signify social signs.