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，将亲属关系和经济关系结合在一起的研究的缺乏，导致了对家族企业的民族志研究可以做什么的错误假设。此类研究可以通过代际尊重相对平衡的变化，以及家庭财富和地区企业之间的纠缠，揭示晚期资本主义和亲属关系的动态。我对构成城镇经济的各种工作及其与周围村庄的联系感兴趣。我将通过小型家庭和亲属经营的企业的民族志来说明这一点，另一方面，亲属网络是其他种类劳动的基础。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世纪有计划的乡村运动的一部分，该运动在农村建立了劳动力和住宅定居点（Philip 2003）。在邓弗里斯，去工业化、权力下放、英国脱欧和COVID-19大流行对农村就业和经济的复杂影响继续显现。虽然在经济辩论的背景下，地方主义、社会阶级和政治代表的争论助长了今天苏格兰独立问题的暗流，特别是对农村“偏僻”地区（Nadel-Klein 1991; Law and Mooney 2006; Smith 2011）。因此，我的邓弗里斯民族志将通过调查家庭工作的传统和前景，挖掘该镇的道德和政治经济。我的民族志研究重点包括农村和城市关系管理的当代问题，以及去工业化经济体中家庭的供应问题。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和生计的手段（Malinowski 1930; Kondo 1990; Becker 1991）。该研究通过调查亲属合作的紧张关系和惯例，进一步探讨了社会和经济关系（Bloch 1984）、生产（Meillassoux 1973）和分配（Bear et al 2015）的人类学问题。我特别关注的是那些为自己的生计生产产品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有一种变革的力量。接下来的问题是，家庭成员之间是如何分配工作的？家族企业是如何规划接班人的？家庭工作是如何产生家庭成员的？共同工作的家庭成员如何处理金钱问题？这些家庭的亲戚会从他们那里买东西吗？家族企业在城镇和国家中是如何定位的？

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?