Market Threads
How Cotton Farmers and Traders Create a Global Commodity
1st Edition
Published on 16. August 2010
248 pages
978-1-4008-3392-4 (ISBN)
Description
What is a global market? How does it work? At a time when new crises in world markets cannot be satisfactorily resolved through old ideas, Market Threads presents a detailed analysis of the international cotton trade and argues for a novel and groundbreaking understanding of global markets. The book examines the arrangements, institutions, and power relations on which cotton trading and production depend, and provides an alternative approach to the analysis of pricing mechanisms.
Drawing upon research from such diverse places as the New York Board of Trade and the Turkish and Egyptian countrysides, the book explores how market agents from peasants to global merchants negotiate, accept, reject, resist, reproduce, understand, and misunderstand a global market. The book demonstrates that policymakers and researchers must focus on the specific practices of market maintenance in order to know how they operate. Markets do not simply emerge as a relationship among self-interested buyers and sellers, governed by appropriate economic institutions. Nor are they just social networks embedded in wider economic social structures. Rather, global markets are maintained through daily interventions, the production of prosthetic prices, and the waging of struggles among those who produce and exchange commodities. The book illustrates the crucial consequences that these ideas have on economic reform projects and market studies.
Spanning a variety of disciplines, Market Threads offers an original look at the world commodity trade and revises prevailing explanations for how markets work.
Drawing upon research from such diverse places as the New York Board of Trade and the Turkish and Egyptian countrysides, the book explores how market agents from peasants to global merchants negotiate, accept, reject, resist, reproduce, understand, and misunderstand a global market. The book demonstrates that policymakers and researchers must focus on the specific practices of market maintenance in order to know how they operate. Markets do not simply emerge as a relationship among self-interested buyers and sellers, governed by appropriate economic institutions. Nor are they just social networks embedded in wider economic social structures. Rather, global markets are maintained through daily interventions, the production of prosthetic prices, and the waging of struggles among those who produce and exchange commodities. The book illustrates the crucial consequences that these ideas have on economic reform projects and market studies.
Spanning a variety of disciplines, Market Threads offers an original look at the world commodity trade and revises prevailing explanations for how markets work.
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09/2010
1st Edition
Princeton University Press
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Koray Çaliskan is assistant professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Bogaziçi University, Istanbul.
Content
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction: How to Study a Global Market 1
A Review of Literature on the Market 2
Social Studies of the Market 3
New Directions in the Social Study of Markets 6
Commodity Chains, Systems of Provision, and the Social Lives of Things 9
Why Cotton? 11
How to Follow Cotton? 13
Where to Follow Cotton? 14
Summary of Arguments 16
Chapter 1: What Is a World Price? The Prosthetic and Actual Worth of Cotton 22
How Much Does an Actual Bale of Cotton Really Cost? 24
The Price Disappears Again 31
Making Sense of the Price 33
Market Reports 35
Optional Prices of Cotton 49
Conclusion 54
Chapter 2: Market Maintenance in the Worlds of Commodity Circulation 59
The World of Cotton 60
We Have on This Day Sold to You as Follows 61
The Shipment Is Brought Together 64
Two Thousand Bales to Go 66
We Hereby Confirm the Arrival of. 75
The Market Platform: Capital, Knowledge, and Network 76
Conclusion 80
Chapter 3: Markets' Multiple Boundaries in Izmir, Turkey 84
Pit Trading in the Izmir Mercantile Exchange 85
The Rehearsal Price of the Pit 88
The Transaction Price of Postpit Trading 94
Making the Market Price of Turkish Cotton 97
Another Market Place: The Permanent Working Group on Cotton 99
Conclusion 102
Chapter 4: A Market without Exchange: Cotton Trade in Egypt 105
The World's First Cotton Futures Market and Its Historical Setting 106
Alcotexa and Cotton's Associate Price 108
We Spend All Our Time in Search of the Price 115
Three Traits of Trade 119
Cotton Comes to the Market 122
Conclusion 128
Chapter 5: Growing Cotton and Its Global Market in a Turkish Village 131
Field Preparation and Sowing in Pamukköy 133
Mechanical and Manual Sowing 136
Irrigation 140
The Harvest 141
The Market: Exchanging Cotton in Pamukköy 144
The Traders' Price 145
The Farmers' Price 148
Conclusion 152
Chapter 6: Cotton Fields of Power in Rural Egypt 156
Cotton Is Disappearing in Egypt 158
An Illegal Alien in the Egyptian Countryside 159
Growing Cotton in the Fields of Kafr Gaffar and ?Izbet Sabri 161
So Your Egyptians Are Kurds, No? 164
The Struggle to Survive: Farmers, Animals, and Stock 166
Financing the Plant Stock with Livestock 169
The Gamoosa Dies, the Cotton Grows 171
Research in the Wild Countryside 174
The Harvesting and Marketing of Cotton 177
Conclusion 185
Conclusion: What Is a Global Market? 188
Bridging the Global and the Regional 193
The Rural Fields of Global Markets 198
The Production and Exchange of Cotton 200
The Market Fields of Power 202
What Is to Be Done with the Market 205
Glossary 209
References 213
Index 223
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction: How to Study a Global Market 1
A Review of Literature on the Market 2
Social Studies of the Market 3
New Directions in the Social Study of Markets 6
Commodity Chains, Systems of Provision, and the Social Lives of Things 9
Why Cotton? 11
How to Follow Cotton? 13
Where to Follow Cotton? 14
Summary of Arguments 16
Chapter 1: What Is a World Price? The Prosthetic and Actual Worth of Cotton 22
How Much Does an Actual Bale of Cotton Really Cost? 24
The Price Disappears Again 31
Making Sense of the Price 33
Market Reports 35
Optional Prices of Cotton 49
Conclusion 54
Chapter 2: Market Maintenance in the Worlds of Commodity Circulation 59
The World of Cotton 60
We Have on This Day Sold to You as Follows 61
The Shipment Is Brought Together 64
Two Thousand Bales to Go 66
We Hereby Confirm the Arrival of. 75
The Market Platform: Capital, Knowledge, and Network 76
Conclusion 80
Chapter 3: Markets' Multiple Boundaries in Izmir, Turkey 84
Pit Trading in the Izmir Mercantile Exchange 85
The Rehearsal Price of the Pit 88
The Transaction Price of Postpit Trading 94
Making the Market Price of Turkish Cotton 97
Another Market Place: The Permanent Working Group on Cotton 99
Conclusion 102
Chapter 4: A Market without Exchange: Cotton Trade in Egypt 105
The World's First Cotton Futures Market and Its Historical Setting 106
Alcotexa and Cotton's Associate Price 108
We Spend All Our Time in Search of the Price 115
Three Traits of Trade 119
Cotton Comes to the Market 122
Conclusion 128
Chapter 5: Growing Cotton and Its Global Market in a Turkish Village 131
Field Preparation and Sowing in Pamukköy 133
Mechanical and Manual Sowing 136
Irrigation 140
The Harvest 141
The Market: Exchanging Cotton in Pamukköy 144
The Traders' Price 145
The Farmers' Price 148
Conclusion 152
Chapter 6: Cotton Fields of Power in Rural Egypt 156
Cotton Is Disappearing in Egypt 158
An Illegal Alien in the Egyptian Countryside 159
Growing Cotton in the Fields of Kafr Gaffar and ?Izbet Sabri 161
So Your Egyptians Are Kurds, No? 164
The Struggle to Survive: Farmers, Animals, and Stock 166
Financing the Plant Stock with Livestock 169
The Gamoosa Dies, the Cotton Grows 171
Research in the Wild Countryside 174
The Harvesting and Marketing of Cotton 177
Conclusion 185
Conclusion: What Is a Global Market? 188
Bridging the Global and the Regional 193
The Rural Fields of Global Markets 198
The Production and Exchange of Cotton 200
The Market Fields of Power 202
What Is to Be Done with the Market 205
Glossary 209
References 213
Index 223
