cohesion and conflict in transnational merchant families

How do people negotiate the diversity of positionalities within kin groups? Through a diachronic approach, I investigate how Ali and Jalal, two merchants with Azeri and Gilaki ethnic identifications who came to Hamburg in the 1930s, mobilized kin to generate capital along the lines of generation, gender, and age. The reader simultaneously learns about the local history of Iranian immigration. Building on literature about historical merchant networks, the social organization of the Iranian marketplace (bazaar), the anthropology of kinship and transnational families, I question the social cohesion on which Aihwa Ong's study of flexible capital creation relies. The material suggests that the experience of family relations influences agents' positioning in the local Iranian social field