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Paper short abstract:

The paper explores how traders in urban contexts in Peru get access to markets through traders' associations. Practices of reciprocity/circulation are seen to reproduce collective prosperity, and the paper discusses how "markets" in a context of informality are negotiated in terms of moralities.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores how traders in urban contexts in Peru negotiate the access to markets - and to land - through the establishment of traders' associations. In particular, the paper is concerned with how trade in this context is based upon an intense cultivation of social relationships, at the same time as competition, distrust and contestations over power are made evident through accusations of corruption against leaders, as well as the use of brujería (witchcraft, or harmful acts). The idea of "markets" has often strong connotations to morality/immorality in most cultural contexts, by being associated with money, the devil or destruction of sociality on the one hand, and modernity, consumption, survival or the participation in society/citizenship on the other. The aim of this paper is to discuss 1) how this moralization takes place in a specific cultural context, and 2) what characterizes the approach of the Peruvian state to these informal economic practices. By reflecting on how practices of reciprocity, exchange and circulation in the Andean context are seen as "fertile" and as reproducing collective prosperity (e.g. making money "give birth", Harris 1995), the paper discusses the moralities of markets in a context where trade is of a more or less informal kind. It discusses how state regulations and interventions are made objects of challenge and contestation among traders, and how the approach of the authorities to these activities varies between silent acceptance, policies of formalization and occasional moves to abolish these practices.