Doctoral Dissertation Research: Labor Transformations and Network Formation in an Emerging Commodity Supply Chain

Brown University, Providence RI

Investigators

Abstract

Commodity supply chains have long proven to be important sites for examining relationships between producers and consumers. The expansion of once niche markets has provided new opportunities for exploring how those relationships vary across different economic and social contexts. Contemporary consumption practices around sustainable and equitable trade practices have significantly shaped a range of commodity chains, as well as business and trade policies. This doctoral training project explores variation in the socioeconomic impacts of an entrepreneurially driven, government-supported commodity revitalization effort. In addition to providing funding for the training of a graduate student in the methods of empirical and scientific data collection and analysis, findings from the project will be shared with policymakers, non-governmental organizations, civil society organizations, and rural communities. The researchers will examine and analyze the dynamics of an expanding textile supply chain as socioeconomically distinct groups constituting small-scale industries interact in larger networks. This dissertation project examines a textile commodity chain and asks how it is deployed in identity formation amongst diverse social groups: craft producers, state bureaucrats, urban entrepreneurs, and consumers. This textile commodity chain is an ideal site to explore the emergence and expansion of niche markets, as it provides a context for observing the social, economic, and political variables influencing the transformation of a clothing industry generally associated with luxury markets. The project relies on a combination of anthropological methods, including observation, interviews, and archival research, to examine the integration of rural women workers into larger economies of scale. The results contribute to broader political economic theories about commodity frontiers. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.