Platformisation as a “mycelial” safety-net: the case of a queer feminist-led intentional community in China

Purpose Marketing scholarship has paid limited attention to how socially marginalised groups, particularly queer women, mobilise the logics of platformisation to organise and sustain communities. This omission is particularly salient in contexts marked by market exclusion and institutional constraints, conditions frequently encountered by queer-feminist communities in the Global South. Examining a queer women-led intentional community – D Village – located in rural China, this study aims to illustrate how members strategically engage with platformised infrastructures to cultivate community and collectively construct what the authors term a “Mycelial Safety-Net”. This safety-net enables participants to navigate market exclusion and resist the broader social marginalisation experienced by queer women. Design/methodology/approach The authors used a two-year netnographic study of queer female community members’ digital traces, complemented by a participatory ethnographic investigation of their lived experiences in D Village. The empirical material comprises field notes from two field visits and semi-structured interviews with ten queer villagers. Findings The findings reveal how queer women leverage the logics of platformisation to organise a Mycelial Safety-Net across interconnected micro-, meso- and macro-levels. At the micro level, the underground mycelium captures the decentralised, rhizomatic and often invisible connections through which queer-feminist individuals engage with digital platforms. At the macro level, the soil signifies the broader socio-political, economic and technological conditions of platformisation that simultaneously enable and constrain queer-feminist lives and communities. At the meso level, the rhizomatic coordination among queer women becomes materially manifested as mushrooms, emerging as entrepreneurial initiatives, cooperative organisations and collective infrastructures of care within the platform economy. Originality/value To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is among the first in marketing scholarship to examine how marketing logics, particularly platformisation, can be strategically appropriated by queer women to organise and sustain alternative market structures of intentional community under conditions of institutional marginalisation. Drawing on an intentional community led by queer women in China, the authors challenge the epistemic dominance of platformisation research that has largely been informed by Global North, elitist and heterosexual perspectives. By foregrounding the experiences of queer women in the Global South, the authors demonstrate how platformised infrastructures can be repurposed to cultivate collective care, community resilience and more socially just forms of market organisation.