As the previous discussions noted: these authors –
Appadurai, Kopytoff, Reddy, etc. – seek to establish an analytical framework
utilizing the study of commodities as its focal point. Through the exchange of
commodities, it is proffered, scholars can better understand their subjects’
culture, economy, power structures, etc. The authors define commodities,
fundamentally, as “things” with some sort of attributable value that, as the
compilation’s title suggests, evolves and transforms over time, and from people
to people approximating some sort of lifecycle. For the sake of argument, I
find that to be woefully simplistic. Specifically, I take issue with limiting
commodities to (and forgive me if I completely misunderstood or misrepresented
these scholars’ arguments!) the tangible.
Again,
it seems that the author’s definitions limit commodities to “things” that are
culturally valued. That is to say, tangible objects that are (for the most
part) given an intangible value based on a myriad of sociocultural factors. Seems
fair and agreeable, but to me limiting. To use an example from the readings – Reddy eagerly
writes of the intangibles of Diderot and d’ Alembert’s Encyvlopédie as merely representing a “luxurious coffee-table” book; ascribing more
analytical value to commerce surrounding Savary’s Dictionnaire as it clues into the more tangible world of textile
production and trade (264). That is not meant to render Reddy’s investigation
into and interesting analysis of textiles in conflict ridden France as a means
for analyzing broader ideas useless – to the contrary it is fascinating – but tossing
the philosophies and ideas out in favor of tangibly grounded explanations misses
the mark. For instance, I would expand the definition to the intangible world
of ideas. Take our work as historians. Is the valued commodity the paper and
ink of a book or the ideas within? I would argue both.
Your concerns with limiting the the scope of analysis to the tangible strikes me as an issue of evidence. Analyzing the cultural life of a society through a "tangible" commodity inherently means analyzing the ideas attached to that object. This leads us to understand something more about the society from which the object came. Thus, the way cloth merchants approached trade in 1730 can be compared to how it was approached in 1830. This way we see what appears to be a change in how French society saw and dealt with the cloth trade. Thus, a shift from an emphasis on quality and local autonomy to an increased attention to production processes. Conversely, the article on Indian cloth shows how changes can occur without displacing cultural values. I guess what I'm trying to say is that somewhere at the intersection of the abstract and the tangible lies the truth. I would only like to express my dissatisfaction with the way 'value' is sometimes treated as cultural monolith instead as a variable within cultures.
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