narrating traditional iranian carpet merchants

Iranian carpet merchants developed a collective identitary narrative to enhance their capital creation in the social field of the German market, the field of Iranian foreign trade, and transnational bazari networks. This chapter goes beyond the practicalities of juggling resources across social fields: it explains the motivation behind this agency. Building on David Graeber's anthropology of value, as well as on studies about identity marketing and ethnic entrepreneurship, I show how the merchants' resources were evaluated between the 1950s and today to explain by which systems of value these social fields were shaped. From the confrontation between changing systems of value emerges Iranian carpet merchants' potential to increase the efficiency of their capital creation by—collectively—trying to redefine the meaning of their resources

Economic and sociological approaches of french peatlands.

French peatlands have been used mainly for sources of peat for horticulture. 16 sites are still exploited for the production of 400,000 tons/year, representing 46 % of the local peat consumption. Most of these peatlands will be abandoned and restored in the coming years. The objective of this paper is to present the economic aspects of the French peatlands and to explore the sociological consequences of this change in peatland use. Concerning the economic aspects, the French sites of extraction, development of French production, consumption and import of peat, and jobs generated by this activity, are presented. The present tendency is to develop substitutes for peat and to increase imports from other countries. In parallel, alternative uses of peatlands such as conservation, tourism activities and agricultural development of the borders of the peatland are developed creating newsocio-economic values of peatlands in France., These changes in economic uses of the peatland generate modifications in the sociological perceptions of the peatlands. We performed a sociological study based on semi-directive interviews carried out with members of nature conservation associations, farmers, hunters, industrialist, conservative manager, residents, and officials concerned with peatlands. Three sites have been studied: an exploited plain-marsh, in Normandy (Baupte), a site exploited for peat until 1994, then restored and now welcoming the public, in Isère (St Laurent-Du-Pont), and a peatland in Franche-Comté (Frasne) which was exploited until the Second World War, has been recently restored and now welcomes the public. Analysis of interviews reveals that the individuals residing near the site seem to develop a view of the peatlands related to their attachment with the uses of peatlands (extraction of the peat, hunting, gathering of bilberries). The people considered as external observers to the site seem to perceive the peat bog less for its uses than for its existence as a natural environment

Value-added agriculture: a context for the empowerment of French women farmers?

International audienceWhile women's contributions to French agriculture are increasingly recognized, less clear is whether increasing visibility translates into empowerment opportunities. Using qualitative data drawn from interviews with French value-added farmers with diverse life experiences and trajectories, we examine how women have been able to achieve empowerment, and the ways in which value-added agriculture specifically fosters an empowering context. We adopt a conceptualization of empowerment from the development scholarship in order to establish a baseline for scrutiny, viewing empowerment as a multi-dimensional process constituting the 'power to' realize one's goals, the opportunity to exercise 'power with' others, and the ability to find and nurture 'power within' the self. The findings of this study indicate that through the performance of value-added agriculture, women were able to engage in the process of empowerment. They were able to exercise authority in the daily management of their farm operation, explore and define their own methods of work, to express creativity, satisfy needs for social ties, and build a professional identity. However, our results also suggest the persistence of patriarchal and agrarian ideology, undermining the empowerment process. We conclude by discussing the context of empowerment which might mediate this experience for women farmers