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- Convenors:
-
Christof Lammer
(Humboldt University of Berlin and University of Klagenfurt)
André Thiemann (Institute of Ethnology, Czech Academy of Sciences)
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- Discussant:
-
Edward Fischer
(Vanderbilt University)
- Formats:
- Panels Network affiliated
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 21 July, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
Short Abstract:
Value has often been discussed with examples from agriculture. On this old terrain, this panel opens new views on valuation through the lens of infrastructure. This directs attention to material creations of uniqueness and genericness and challenges persistent binaries in economic anthropology.
Long Abstract:
Much has been written about value, and its source has been hotly debated. In this panel we attempt to open new views on valuation practices through the lens of infrastructure. This allows us to connect partitioned anthropological approaches that focus either on production (Marxian), exchange (substantivist), or consumption (Simmel-inspired). We deploy the new lens - 'infrastructures of value' - on old terrain: Value has often been discussed by scholars with examples taken from agriculture. Land was thought to be 'the source of all wealth' by physiocrats like Henry George. A vineyard with 'special properties' was used by Karl Marx to explain 'monopoly price'. Fine wine was also taken up by Lucien Karpik in the 21st century to understand 'economics of singularities,' thereby re-introducing the binary between unique and generic. This persistent binary relates to often claimed ruptures, differences and splits in economic anthropology: artisan versus industrial production, gift versus commodity exchange, capitalism versus socialism, civil society versus state, community versus market. The lens of infrastructure challenges these dichotomies by directing attention to practices of creating (and destroying) both uniqueness and genericness of agricultural matter (e.g. land, yeasts, organic rice, natural wine, berries, olive oil, quality coffee). We welcome contributions that examine how infrastructures broadly defined (ranging from transportation to information and financial infrastructures, from wires, pipes and bottles to labels and people) shape valuation processes in agri-food chains. We thus turn attention to the irreducible materiality of valuation as food, people and ideas move through space and time.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 21 July, 2020, -Paper short abstract:
Through the case of a Moldovan winery, I show that terroir is a complex notion that needs to be assembled through infrastructures of evidence and selection in order to produce value on the market.
Paper long abstract:
The recent emphasis on terroir among Moldovan winemakers is one of the responses to the pressures of competitive wine markets in global capitalism. In terroir, both unique and generic features of a place are evidenced and the articulation of terroir as a value-adding and differentiation tool depends on digital, evidencing or on other productive infrastructures. How are these infrastructures mobilized for measuring and classifying 'nature' (e.g. vineyards, soils, yeasts) in the production of terroir? How does the interplay between 'generic' and 'unique' in this context produce value? I analyse how terroir is articulated at one of the oldest Moldovan wineries, showing that value is produced through human labour embodied in infrastructures for selecting, classifying and differentiating 'nature'. I break down the classificatory and selective processes capturing terroir done through measurements, laboratory analyses of soils and yeasts, or through communication. Evidencing and information infrastructure (websites, presentations, leaflets or tastings) are necessary in substantiating terroir and in performing and disseminating it in relevant environments, in order to create value. Contrary to several authors in economic sociology and anthropology, I show that there is no clear distinction/opposition between the uniqueness of commodities and genericness, but that the two categories are constituting each other in the realm of commodities.
Paper short abstract:
Wine is a product whose value is (increasingly) articulated around its ability to designate a specific origin. Drawing on long term fieldwork in Italy, this paper discusses the connection between this ability to bottles. Such bottles are an infrastructural basis for the global market of wine.
Paper long abstract:
Wine is an agricultural product whose value is (increasingly) articulated around its ability to designate a specific time and place of origin. By far the most prominent articulation of such valuation is that organized around 'terroir' - a concept which has recently been made an object of anthropological scrutiny. Yet in this anthropological literature, as elsewhere, there has been very little discussion concerning an artifact intimately tied to the modern history of terroir: the bottle. This paper draws on long term ethnographic fieldwork among wine producers in Italy, in order to discuss the connection between bottles and the ability for wine to index a space and time of origin. Discussing the bottle in terms of 'container technologies', the paper suggests that these artifacts provide a material-infrastructural basis that has been indispensable for shaping the principles of value that organize the global market of wine today. And, consequently, also for shaping the lives of those who live from selling such wine on this market.
Paper short abstract:
To understand how boutique producers generate "the economy of enrichment" (Boltanski & Esquerre 2017), this paper puts different actors and actants (winemakers, soil, and oak barrels) into a dialogue. Valorization is achieved by creating a story that affects the ultimate life of the produced wine.
Paper long abstract:
"The first bottle of £100 Turkish wine" recently hit the headlines. To show the uniqueness of the most expensive bottle, reference was made not only to the exceptional harvest from a specific year and specific parcels but also to two sets of brand-new oak barrels. There is a growing appreciation in Turkey's wine market for the taste and use of oak barrels. Although barrels are expensive import materials, their numbers have been ever increasing due to investments of elites and the role of international winemakers and oenologists who make wineries foreground quality rather than quantity. Quality-oriented boutique winemaking has a short history in Turkey and economic valuation has been accepted as a form of achievement. Therefore, the above-mentioned bottle is presented as a success story for the country's wine industry. What makes a bottle worth 100 British Pound? How is it different from other wine produced in the same winery or in other wineries? Through the use and presence of an "oak barrel" that is not produced in the country but accepted as an essential item to produce fine wine, I will discuss how the taste of wine is improved, how the unique values of wines are boosted, and how what Luc Boltanski and Arnoud Esquerre call "the economy of enrichment" is generated. By putting different actors and actants (winemakers, soil, and oak barrels) into a dialogue, I argue valorization is maintained through creating a story which is effective in changing the ultimate life of the produced materials.
Paper short abstract:
The article redirects attention to infrastructures of value through the case of specialty coffee production in Brazil. It examines how infrastructures are used to render certain features of coffee relevant as both generic or unique.
Paper long abstract:
Brazil, the world's largest producer of commercial grade coffee, has traditionally been known for its' large and mechanized farms. In recent years, both smaller and larger coffee producers have positioned themselves with 'speciality coffee' in opposition to 'commodity coffee'. Investing in research, equipment and processing methods, the declared aim is to achieve coffees that would exhibit taste characteristics that will score highly and sell for an elevated price range. The article looks behind the producers' self-representations—the distinctions between 'mass' and 'singularity' markets, often reproduced in social science—by redirecting attention to infrastructures of value. It shows not only the continuity of existing physical infrastructures for 'commodity' and 'speciality' production, but examines how infrastructures are used to render certain features of coffee relevant as both generic or unique.
Paper short abstract:
Raspberry production in Hungary has dramatically declined recently. While it used to be centered on 'Fertődi Zamatos', it has increasingly shifted to lower qualities. We argue changes in its value can be understood through their embeddedness in multiple socio-economic and environmental processes.
Paper long abstract:
Between 1960-2000, Hungary was one of the largest exporters of raspberries worldwide. Since then, yearly production plummeted from ca. 20.000 to 700 tonnes (FAOSTAT 2020). Regarding this remarkable decline, we have investigated the phenomenon via fieldwork interviews with plant breeders, refrigerator-storage operators, and farmworkers.
One of the refrigerator owners presented the highly regarded rubus idaeus variety 'Fertődi Zamatos' ('Juicy from Fertőd') - patented by the renowned Hungarian research institute in the 1980s. Our interlocutors revealed that the market distinguishes three ranks of value based on aesthetics (size, drupelets, colour), taste (acid, brix scales), crop yield, and cultivation requirements. 'High aesthetic' fruits are distinguished from 'low quality' and 'below standard' that is damaged by sun or insects and used for jams, syrups, or distilled alcohol.
While the Hungarian raspberry production used to be centered on 'Fertődi Zamatos', it has increasingly shifted to lower qualities. Thus, we argue these changes can merely be understood through their embeddedness in multiple socio-economic and environmental processes. These include well-explored dysfunctions of privatisation, labour shortages, and rising competition from Serbia and Poland. Climate change contributed to lower yields in the form of increased UV exposure, lower precipitation, higher temperatures, and the appearance of new pathogens like drosophila suzukii. However, the greatest effect on the very low yields had the underfunding of infrastructures for antiviral micropropagation of pathogen-free seedlings and the collapse of centralised distribution to farmers. Appreciating the role of scientific infrastructures for value production sheds new light on the merits of socialist planning.
Paper short abstract:
This paper combines perspectives from valuation studies and research on infrastructure to investigate the changing practices of farmland valuation in the context of 'financialization'.
Paper long abstract:
This paper combines perspectives from valuation studies and research on infrastructure to investigate how farmland is valued in Australia. Combining these two approaches, I conceptualize farmland indexes and reports, as well as the calculation techniques, devices and social practices that aim at making farmland comparable and commensurable with other assets as 'infrastructures of farmland valuation'. I will demonstrate how farmland values are socially constructed by those who perform valuations 'on the ground'. At the same, I examine how the infrastructures of farmland valuation, and the changing actors and interests involved, influence and potentially change the very process of valuation itself. I am particularly interested to explore how valuation practices, along with the social constructions and perceptions of price/value relationships, change if the valued object becomes 'financialised', i.e. turned into a financial asset class. I investigate this question by using the example of Australian farmland as a financial asset class 'in the making'.