Contribution short abstract:

Karakul sheep farming no longer works as a means for economic value generation. Alternative modes of valuation gain importance in reproducing the community of Karakul farmers but still depend on economic value. As a result, dissonances and frictions between different values and valuations emerge.

Contribution long abstract:

How do farmers derive value from their activities at a historical moment when economic value generation from farming is failing? Based on ethnographic fieldwork among Karakul sheep farmers in Namibia, I argue that in the economic crisis situation, alternative modes of valuation gain importance, not only as individual motivations but also as a means for the community of Karakul farmers to reproduce itself. This community is haunted by its colonial past, its complicity with colonialism and apartheid and by its potential disappearance in the near future.

Karakul stud ram auctions are community events and valuation arenas, in which the shared quality criteria of what sheep are good sheep for breeding are translated into economic value, into cash. Building on Nancy Munn’s concept of value as relational, I examine the emerging frictions between different scales of valuation through the example of stud auctions.

In the Karakul industry, the relations of price and value, economic value and meaning-making value are complex. Economic gain by itself does not explain why people still farm with Karakul. However, Karakul sheep farming will no longer exist as the industry and the farming community it is today if it is not able to generate at least some form of economic value. The result is increasing friction between different forms of valuation and a feeling of dissonance among farmers.