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

长期以来，大宗商品供应链一直被证明是检验生产者和消费者之间关系的重要场所。曾经的小众市场的扩大为探索这些关系在不同的经济和社会背景下如何变化提供了新的机会。围绕可持续和公平贸易做法的当代消费做法极大地塑造了一系列商品链以及商业和贸易政策。这个博士培训项目探索了企业家驱动的、政府支持的大宗商品振兴努力的社会经济影响的变化。除了为研究生提供实验和科学数据收集和分析方法方面的培训提供资金外，该项目的结果还将与政策制定者、非政府组织、民间社会组织和农村社区分享。研究人员将检查和分析不断扩大的纺织供应链的动态，因为构成小规模产业的社会经济不同群体在更大的网络中相互作用。这篇论文研究了一个纺织品商品链，并询问它是如何在不同的社会群体中形成身份的：手工艺品生产者、国家官僚、城市企业家和消费者。这个纺织品商品链是探索利基市场出现和扩张的理想场所，因为它提供了一个背景，可以观察影响服装行业转型的社会、经济和政治变量，这个行业通常与奢侈品市场有关。该项目综合运用人类学方法，包括观察法、访谈法和档案研究法，考察农村女工融入更大规模经济的情况。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.