Transforming values: reflections on how dried fish takes value socially

Title	Transforming values: reflections on how dried fish takes value socially
Author(s)	Derek Johnson
Format	conceptual reflection essay with lots of empirical illustrations from across the project; could be synthesis piece for book at beginning or end; will have to think about how fits with Mahfuz' piece
Anticipated length	3000-4000 words
Synopsis	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.