Consumers actively seek out authentic cultural experiences both in everyday consumption and when they travel. In this study, I investigate the processes through which personal homes are shared cross-culturally. I incorporate insights from the home and sharing literature to explore how consumers negotiate cultural distinctiveness and in-group boundaries when sharing their most valuable possessions. Using in-depth interviews, online archival data, and home photos, I find a swapping community where swappers share an in-group identity and enact loosely-defined conventions. Using these loosely-defined conventions, swappers negotiate a good working order that transcends cultural distinctiveness (Torelli, Ahluwalia, Cheng, Olson, & Stoner, 2017). As swappers localize these conventions in individual swap trades, they justify and temporarily tolerate the cultural distinctiveness. Or more experienced swappers normalize them as authentic experience. This research contributes to understanding how consumers actively negotiate cultural differences and authentic experiences in the sharing economy.

• Nicole Ye Yang(The University of Melbourne, Australia)
• Angela Paladino(The University of Melbourne, Australia)