Doctoral Dissertation Research: Informality and Flexibility in Loan Networks and Debt Dispute Resolution

博士论文研究：贷款网络和债务纠纷解决的非正式性和灵活性

• 批准号: 1458286
• 负责人: Thomas Hansen
• 金额: $ 1.21万
• 依托单位: Stanford University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-03-01 至 2016-02-29
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1458286&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Informality; Flexibility

It was once the widely held belief among practitioners of economic development that economic growth was frequently hindered by the existence of traditional cultural practices and attachments, which could prevent the emergence of more formal institutions. That position is no longer so widely held, as several decades of globalization have produced ample evidence of culturally blended patterns in instances of robust economic development, as informal economic structures have developed with local cultural notions of fairness, flexibility, risk and trust. As a result, informality is now celebrated as a model of flexible economic growth and practitioners are increasingly encouraged to adopt parameters reflecting the diversity of economic development strategies. Scientists remain challenged, however, as to how to identify and model the pathways through which informality and flexibility benefit economic growth. This project, which trains a graduate student in how to conduct rigorous, empirically-grounded scientific fieldwork, will explore the ways in which informality, as a fundamental cultural pattern of this new flexible economy, influences existing economic structures and the propensities for economic growth. Samil Can, under the supervision of Thomas Hansen of Stanford University, will explore debt relations and dispute resolutions by tracing loan networks and practices of resolving debt disputes. The research will be conducted in Delhi, India, a commercial center in one of the world's most important and largest emerging economies. Based on preliminary research, the researcher holds that India has diverse moral and religious notions of exchange, credit, obligation and authority working to maintain informal and flexible economic structures. Based on this claim, the project whether and how these moral and religious notions socio-culturally undertake and diversify the roles fulfilled by the state, the banking system, and the regulations in an idealized formal economic model. The project investigates how Muslim traders, shopkeepers, warehouse suppliers, and retailers establish social networks to find debts and resolve debt disputes using formal and informal authorities (e.g. religious leaders, elders, court system, and police). Preliminary data suggests Muslims of Old Delhi heavily rely on religious and moral notions in their transactions, but also maintain access to other local and transnational economic networks. Therefore, this project seeks to provide generalizable insights on how flexible economic growth relies on various and ever-changing cultural notions. The project will utilize ethnographic methods (participant observation of carefully selected informants, in-depth interviews, oral histories) and spatial research methodologies (social network analysis, socio-spatial mapping) in order to document how these cultural economic transaction patterns among Muslims in Delhi relate to the larger informal economy of Delhi. The findings will significantly inform academic and intellectual debates over "flexible economic growth" by outlining its everyday practical implications and exploring the ways in which debt obligation is culturally framed. It will contribute significantly to a pressing global debate on the concept of "debt" among anthropologists, economists, political scientists, and a wide range of non-academic policy-makers. Amidst recent debates on the authority and legitimacy of creditors and debt-giving agents, the study on cultural frames of new local and global economic patterns shall also provide vital intellectual and practical insights on how current initiatives to restructure debt in financial markets should be formulated in relation to informality.

经济发展从业者曾普遍认为，经济增长经常受到传统文化习俗和附属物的存在的阻碍，这可能会阻碍更正式的机构的出现。这一立场不再被广泛持有，因为几十年的全球化产生了大量证据，表明在经济强劲发展的情况下，文化交融的模式，因为非正式经济结构随着当地公平、灵活、风险和信任的文化观念而发展。因此，非正式性现在被誉为灵活的经济增长模式，越来越多的实践者被鼓励采用反映经济发展战略多样性的参数。然而，在如何识别和模拟非正规性和灵活性有利于经济增长的途径方面，科学家们仍然面临挑战。这个项目培训研究生如何进行严谨的、有经验的科学实地考察，将探索非正式性作为这种新的灵活经济的基本文化模式，如何影响现有的经济结构和经济增长倾向。Samil Can在斯坦福大学的Thomas Hansen的监督下，将通过追踪贷款网络和解决债务纠纷的做法来探索债务关系和纠纷解决方案。这项研究将在印度德里进行，这是世界上最重要和最大的新兴经济体之一的商业中心。在初步研究的基础上，研究人员认为，印度在交换、信用、义务和权威方面有着不同的道德和宗教观念，致力于维持非正式和灵活的经济结构。基于这一主张，该项目探讨了在理想化的正规经济模式中，这些道德和宗教观念是否以及如何在社会文化中承担起国家、银行系统和监管所发挥的作用并使之多样化。该项目调查穆斯林商人、店主、仓库供应商和零售商如何建立社交网络，以利用正式和非正式当局(如宗教领袖、长老、法院系统和警察)寻找债务和解决债务纠纷。初步数据显示，旧德里的穆斯林在交易中严重依赖宗教和道德观念，但也保持着与其他当地和跨国经济网络的联系。因此，这个项目寻求提供关于灵活的经济增长如何依赖于各种不断变化的文化观念的概括性见解。该项目将利用人种学方法(对精心挑选的线人进行参与式观察、深入访谈、口述历史)和空间研究方法(社会网络分析、社会空间绘图)，以记录德里穆斯林之间的这些文化经济交易模式与德里更大的非正规经济之间的关系。这些发现将勾勒出“灵活经济增长”的日常实际含义，并探索债务义务在文化上的构成方式，从而为有关“灵活经济增长”的学术和智力辩论提供重要信息。它将在人类学家、经济学家、政治学家和广泛的非学术政策制定者之间，对一场紧迫的关于“债务”概念的全球辩论做出重大贡献。在最近关于债权人和偿债代理人的权威和合法性的辩论中，对新的地方和全球经济模式的文化框架的研究也将提供重要的知识和实践见解，说明应如何结合非正规性制定当前金融市场债务重组的举措。