Tensions and Conventions of Kin - Work: An Ethnography of Family Businesses in Rural Scotland

家庭和工作是社会生活中最根深蒂固的事实，然而，缺乏将亲属关系和经济关系结合在一起的研究，导致人们对家族企业的民族志研究能起到什么作用产生了错误的假设。这类研究可以通过世代尊重的相对平衡的变化，以及家庭财富和地区企业之间的纠葛，来揭示晚期资本主义和亲密无间的动态。我对构成城镇经济的各种工作以及它与周围村庄的联系感兴趣。我将通过一个民族志来做到这一点，一方面是小型家族和家族经营的企业，另一方面是低于其他类型劳动力的亲属网络。苏格兰西南部的集镇邓弗里斯是研究经济和社会纠葛的理想案例。邓弗里斯和加洛韦选区是18世纪计划中的乡村运动的一部分，该运动在农村建立了劳动力和居民点(菲利普，2003年)。去工业化、权力下放、英国退欧和新冠肺炎大流行对农村就业和经济的复杂影响在邓弗里斯继续上演。虽然地方主义、社会阶层和政治代表的争论被放到了有利于经济辩论的背景下，但它助长了当今苏格兰独立问题的暗流，特别是对农村地区来说(Nadel-Klein 1991；Law and Mooney 2006；Smith 2011)。因此，我对邓弗里斯的民族志将通过调查家庭工作的传统和前景来挖掘该镇的道德和政治经济。研究问题我的方法体现了亲属关系研究的一个方向，即试图理解亲属关系网络如何成为维持生计的手段(Malinowski 1930；Kondo 1990；Becker 1991)。这项研究通过对亲属在一起工作的紧张关系和习俗的调查，进一步参与了社会和经济关系(Bloch 1984)、生产(Meillassoux 1973)和分配(Bear Et Al 2015)的人类学问题。我特别关注那些生产自给自足并在当地市场销售产品的小型家族企业。我的感觉是，家庭工作对家庭动态和亲密关系具有变革性的力量。接下来就会问，工作是如何在家庭成员之间分配的？家族企业内部是如何规划继任的？家庭工作是如何产生其成员的？共同工作的家庭成员是如何处理金钱的？这些家庭的亲戚会从他们那里买东西吗？家族企业是如何在城镇和国家中定位的？

Family and work are the most entrenching facts of social life, yet the paucity of studies that bring kinship and economic relations together has led to misassumptions about what ethnographic research into family businesses can do. Such research can reveal the dynamics of late capitalism and kin intimacies through the shifts in the relative balance of generational esteem and the entanglements of household wealth and regional businesses. I am interested in the kinds of work that make up town economy and its connections to the surrounding villages. I will do that through an ethnography of small family and kin-run businesses on one hand and the networks of kin that underly other kinds of labour on the other hand. The south-west Scottish market town Dumfries provides an ideal case study of economic and social entanglements. The Dumfries and Galloway constituency was part of the 18th century planned village movement that established labour and residential settlements in the countryside (Philip 2003). The complex effects of deindustrialization, devolution, Brexit, and the COVID-19 pandemic on rural employment and economy continue to unfold in Dumfries. While relegated to the background in favor of economic debates, the contentions of localism, social class, and political representation feed the undercurrent of the question of Scottish independence today especially for rural 'out of the way' regions (Nadel-Klein 1991; Law and Mooney 2006; Smith 2011). Thus, my ethnography of Dumfries will tap into the moral and political economy of the town by investigating the traditions and prospects of family work. My ethnographic focus encompasses contemporary issues of the administration of rural and urban relations and the provisioning of households in deindustrializing economies.Research QuestionsMy approach exemplifies a direction in kinship studies that seeks to understand how kinship networks are means of sustenance and livelihood (Malinowski 1930; Kondo 1990; Becker 1991). The study partakes further in anthropological questions of social and economic relationships (Bloch 1984), production (Meillassoux 1973), and distribution (Bear et al 2015) through an investigation of the tensions and conventions of kin working together. My particular focus is on the small family businesses that produce for their own sustenance and sell their products in the local market. My sense is that family work exercises a transformational power over family dynamics and intimacies. It then follows to ask, how is work divided between the family members? How is succession planned within family businesses? How does family work engender its members? How do co-working familymembers deal with money? Do relatives of these families buy from them? How do family businesses situate themselves within the town and the country?