Upscaling a sharing approach

Parallels between person-to-person sharing and centrally institutionalized forms of redistribution have been noted repeatedly but also need to be assessed critically. When sharing is defined as the allocation of economic goods without calculating returns we may ask whether this also includes redistributive large-scale institutions such as forms of public pooling, crowd-based digital platforms or taxation. Can sharing be upscaled to institutional settings at larger scales or is it tied to intimate contexts of face-to-face interaction? This contribution discusses this question by giving particular attention to the way in which the presence of social agents is shaped in sharing and how it is altered when it is upscaled institutionally. On the basis of comparisons between ethnographic observations in small and large settings, processes of recognizing, mediating, virtualizing and temporalizing presence are identified. Finally, some lessons from research on sharing in intimate settings are being drawn for assessing the role that sharing may play to counter inequalities in larger institutional settings.