Doctoral Dissertation Research: Trade, Trust, and Social Relations in Transnational Trade

当代全球大宗商品贸易通常被认为是由大型跨国公司控制的。然而，当我们更仔细地观察实际的大宗商品走势时，就会看到各种各样的当地参与者。这些人包括贸易商和贸易社区，他们将货物和资本转移到惊人的遥远距离。然而，研究全球资本主义的研究人员往往忽视了这些参与者在当代的意义，他们认为，因为他们可能依赖亲属关系、社区和区域商业网络，他们影响全球市场的能力是有限的。然而，最近的新证据表明，这一假设可能是基于对经济和社会生活的错误划分，从而使社会科学家对传统贸易商和交易社区的真正重要性视而不见。为了调查这种可能性，该奖项支持的研究将调查几个以前被忽视的问题。当地做法和国际商品贸易之间有什么关系？当代商业是否与历史上的贸易网络相连？亲情、友谊和义务的联系在调节不断变化的国际监管和税收制度中的货物流动方面是否重要？此外，鉴于交易者往往既是关键的社会中介，也是关键的经济中间人，他们的活动可能会在战争和政治压力期间和之后影响两国关系？为了回答这些问题，斯坦福大学人类学博士生内斯拉·萨马拉维克莱马将在沙里卡·特里纳加马博士的指导下，对一个印度洋贸易社区进行研究。由于问题的复杂性，研究地点需要相对有限，以便能够观察工作中的经济微观过程。因此，她选择专注于斯里兰卡的黄金和宝石贸易，历史上一直由家族企业主导，这些企业在当地和跨国经营，跨越种族差异，在斯里兰卡最近的内战之前、期间和之后保持着经济关系。她将在新加坡进行研究，以补充她在斯里兰卡的调查部分。在新加坡，南印度商人将斯里兰卡商品在整个印度洋上进行再流通。为了收集数据，研究人员将使用多种社会科学研究方法，包括：参与者观察、半结构访谈、家族史提取和档案研究。首先，她将研究交易员的信任话语，以了解交易家族如何构成自己，获得信贷，建立声誉，从事慈善事业，并建立深远的依赖关系。其次，她将寻求通过比国家更广泛的框架来概念化商人的当地关系，并将他们置于跨国商业网络中。第三，她将寻求理解尽管冲突及其后果，种族依恋和差异如何与持久的种族间商业交流共存。这项研究的结果将极大地有助于理解当地社会经济制度与全球贸易之间的关系，并为制定促进冲突后局势中和平共处的政策开辟新的舞台。

Contemporary global commodity trade is often understood to be controlled by large, multinational corporations. However, when we look more closely at actual commodity movements, a wide range of local actors comes into view. These include traders and trading communities who move goods and capital across surprisingly vast distances. Yet researchers who study global capitalism have tended to overlook the contemporary significance of such actors, assuming that because they may depend on kinship, community, and regional networks for commerce, their ability to affect global markets is limited. Recently, however, new evidence suggests that this assumption may be based on a false division between economic and social life and thus blind social scientists to the true importance of traditional traders and trading communities. To investigate this possibility, the research supported by this award will investigate several previously neglected questions. What relationships are there between local practicies and international commodity trade? Is contemporary commerce connected to historical trading networks? Are connections of kinship, friendship, and obligation important in modulating flows of goods across changing international regimes of regulation and taxation? And, given that traders are often key social as well as economic intermediaries, how might their activities affect relationships during and after periods of war and political stress?To pursue these question, Stanford University anthropology doctoral student, Nethra Samarawickreama, supervised by Dr. Sharika Thiranagama, will undertake research on an Indian Ocean trading community. Because of the complexity of the questiions, the research site needs to be relatively bounded in order to be able to observe the economic micro-processes at work. Therefore, she has chosen to focus on the gold and gem trade in Sri Lanka, which has historically been dominated by family businesses that function locally and transnationally, do so across lines of ethnic difference, and have sustained economic relationships before, during, and after Sri Lanka's recent civil war. She will complement the Sri Lanka-based portion of her investigation with research in Singapore, where South Indian businessmen recirculate Sri Lankan goods throughout the Indian Ocean. To gather data, the researcher will use multiple social science research methods, including: participant observation, semi-structured interviews, the elicitation of family histories, and archival research. First, she will examine traders' discourses of trust to understand how trading families constitute themselves, access credit, build reputations, engage in philanthropy, and forge far-reaching relations of dependency. Secondly, she will seek to conceptualize traders' local relations through frames wider than the nation and situate them in transnational commercial networks. Thirdly, she will seek to understand how ethnic attachments and differences may coexist with enduring inter-ethnic commercial exchanges despite conflict and its aftermaths. Findings from this research will contribute significantly to understanding the relationship between local socioeconomic systems and global trade, as well as opening up new arenas for developing policies to faciliate peaceful co-existence in post-conflict situations.