E-book THEORIZING VALUE
| Name | Description | Comments | Due |
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| SECTION INTRODUCTION: Concepts, theory, ideas | -- | ||
| SES-oriented dried fish value chain and social-ecological wellbeing of upper segment value chain actors (Sisir Kanta Pradhan, Prateep Kumar Nayak, Derek Armitage) | Dried fish accounts for 12% of the total fish consumption globally increases up to 36% in low-income countries. Rich in calcium and essential micronutrients, dried fish contribution to food and nutrition security of the poor is considered significant. Its primary production and trade are important sources of livelihoods and employment for millions of producers, about half of which are women. Despite its importance, work on dried fish value chain (DFVC) continues to focus on financial value creation and linear interactions among market actors that impede the recognition of human rights, justice, food security and power across the entire value chain. Such a neoclassical perspective of DFVC undermines the complex human-nature interactions that is contingent upon specific histories, people, place, and practices. This has strong implications for the poor who are positioned at the extractive end of value chain and who continue to remain vulnerable to the changing governance approaches as well as dwindling fish stocks. Scholars working within the realm of sociology, anthropology and interdisciplinary sciences such as social-ecological systems advocate for inclusion of non-linear and multiple feedbacks within the DFVC, in place of the current narrow connotations of value and the process of value realization. Drawing upon dried fish value chain and SES literature, the chapter offers an outline of a SES-oriented value chain (SESVC) by identifying the key attributes that have the potential to improve social-ecological wellbeing of upper end value chain actors in dried fish value chain. |
Sent Emdad for review (ERIC) 2022-03-10: Received from Sisir. 2022-02-03: Sisir still dealing with COVID issues in family.
Responded that we will accept the submission when it is ready. 2022-02-02: Follow-up email to Sisir et al. 2022-01-14: Requests 15 day extension (down with COVID019) |
2022-01-30 |
| Examining value from a socio-cultural perspective (Md. Mahfuzar Rahman) | This essay examines value from a socio-cultural perspective, deriving insights from existing value literature in anthropology, social science, development studies, and critical literature on global value chains. Highlighting the social connection of value and value heterogeneity, it problematizes the market economy's narrow, individualistic and disembedded value perspective. The money-centric valuation system builds on neo-classical economic principles, pays attention only to the capitalist economic relations and their economic value and is insensitive to non-economic relations and value. The existing valuation system built on this narrow understanding is partial and misleading; it failed to capture the real value of a thing. This essay argues for a critical value perspective that is inclusive, sensitive to value heterogeneity, attentive to all types of economic and social relations that produce value, and critical to the impact of (dis)recognition of value on human wellbeing. |
Great story; good writing; ready for copy editing From Mahfuz:
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| Maimul: The story of marginality (Yeashir Arafath and Mirza Taslima Sultana) | Maimul is the term widely used to denotes the North-eastern haor centric families of Bangladesh, who are involved in fishing, fish farming, fish trading, and fish drying. During the scoping field visit on dried fish at Sylhet and Sunamganj, we came across the term. The research participants of the dried fish market told us that though the Maimuls are Muslim, they are considered as a lower caste in the society; hence no one generally wants to have a marital relationship with these families. Socially the term Maimul has a derogatory connotation. Over the past two decades, people's perceptions of the Maimul suffix have been transforming slowly due to the economic change of the people involved in dried fish production and trading. This paper aims to unpack the tensions around the identity of Maimul at Sylhet, as well as to grasp the transformation of the identity which is intertwined with the local politics. |
Great story; good writing; ready for copy editing Submitted by Yeashir Arafath (Borno), JU MSS student.
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| Transforming values: reflections on how dried fish takes value socially (Derek Johnson) | The intent of this paper is to reflect in down to earth language on how dried fish is valued in different ways across South and Southeast Asia. Through comparison, the paper seeks to do several things. It aims to illustrate the richness of dried fish as an object of interest. It does this with reference to examples drawn from written work that touches on dried fish and from the scoping research of the Dried Fish Matters project. From this exercise in comparison of the diverse range of ways of appreciating dried fish, emerges the broad intrinsic value of the humble product of dried fish. Using dried fish as a reference point, the paper also seek to sketch a particular approach to understanding economic activity. Dried fish shows that economic relations do not just concern the material matters of production volume, profit, and wages, but also activities rich with meanings that can only be understood in social terms. Those meanings and those relationships, in fact, are core to economic behaviour, as dried fish illustrate. |
2022-02-02: It is no longer the end of January. Derek expects to have the paper ready by the end of January. |
2022-01-30 |
| Navigating Weights and Measurement in the dried fish value chain (Amalendu Jyotishi, Prashanth R, Nikita Gopal, Ramachandra Bhatta, Priya Gupta, Holly M. Hapke, Prasanna S) | The Karnataka and Kerala team while mapping the dried fish markets came across species sold using different weights and measurements. Through further observations we found there are species sold in numbers as a unit, others in kilogram, some as heaps, and yet others in seru a container of local measurement. We probed dried fish value chains further to understand what measurements are followed in the procurement process of these species. This led us to multiple and varied measurements used at different points along the value chain for different species. To add to the complexities, the weight of the fish (in terms of mass and volume) goes through a change as the wet fish loses weight in the drying process and the level of moisture content decreases. The amount of salting would also change the weights. This led to the question, how do the women-small-scale dried fish processors and traders navigate varied weights and measurements in their procurement of supply, processing, and sale of products to consumers? How does experience and the intuitive cognitive logic work for these women who are barely literate, to navigate the process? Is there a trade secret from which they tend to gain, or they lose out or discount their own (non-market and mostly labor) contribution in the process? Why isn’t a uniform method of measurement followed across species of fish and in dried fish value chains? In this short narrative, we attempt to explain the process of measurement in different nodes of the dried fish value chain. While we group some species across different types of measurement in the value chain, we also follow a few species, in an attempt to unearth the reasons behind following such varied measurement practices. To address a larger question, standardization of measurement is one of the prime attributes of capitalist economy and its expansion. In that context, we can raise questions about how multiple systems of transactions co-exist and how does these inform the economic system overall, which is deeply embedded in social, cultural, and path-dependent practices. |
Great story; good writing; ready for copy editing Review completed. Received from Prasanna Surathkal.
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| Dried fish and sustainable gastronomy (Eric) | 6000-word chapter linking dried fish to foodways / cultural heritage, sustainability, and development. Combining the three pillars of sustainable development – ecological, economic, and social – plus culture and various forms of lived, sensorial experience. Background on UN Sustainable Gastronomy Day, the Michelin Green Star, and anthropological perspectives on nationalism and gastropolitics, with reference to connections to dried and fermented fish. |
2022-03-18: I originally intended this as part of the Introduction, as a way of linking the e-book to Sustainable Gastronomy Day. But the chapter has really grown, and probably fits better alongside the other theoretical reflections on "value". We should still introduce the concept of sustainable gastronomy in the Introduction chapter, and reference this chapter specifically. 2022-01-31: The draft is mostly complete, but missing description of the graph (raestur fiskur) and references to other chapters in the e-book. |
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