Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- List of figures
- Acknowledgments
- Note on transliteration
- Map of Iran
- 1 The puzzle of the Tehran Bazaar under the Pahlavi monarchy and the Islamic Republic
- 2 Conceptualizing the bazaar
- 3 Bazaar transformations: networks, reputations and solidarities
- 4 Networks in the context of transformative agendas
- 5 Carpets, tea, and teacups: commodity types and sectoral trajectories
- 6 Networks of mobilization under two regimes
- 7 Conclusions
- Selected bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Middle East Studies
3 - Bazaar transformations: networks, reputations and solidarities
networks, reputations, and solidarities
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- List of figures
- Acknowledgments
- Note on transliteration
- Map of Iran
- 1 The puzzle of the Tehran Bazaar under the Pahlavi monarchy and the Islamic Republic
- 2 Conceptualizing the bazaar
- 3 Bazaar transformations: networks, reputations and solidarities
- 4 Networks in the context of transformative agendas
- 5 Carpets, tea, and teacups: commodity types and sectoral trajectories
- 6 Networks of mobilization under two regimes
- 7 Conclusions
- Selected bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Middle East Studies
Summary
Law and order arise out of the very processes they govern. But they are not rigid, nor due to any inertia or permanent mould.
Bronislaw MalinowskiSolidarity has to be constructed out of little pieces, rather than found already waiting, in the form of an ur-langauge which all of us recognize when we hear it.
Richard RortyI cannot remember the number of times that bazaaris complained to me that they could not trust their exchange partners, but it seemed to me to be the grandest of tropes. Their protests were articulated through a comparison between the past and the present. “The past” was a time when a man's word was as good as gold. It was a time when the maxim that a truly honest bazaari “places his mustache as collateral” (or even “places a strand of his mustache as collateral”) was a fact of daily life. No contracts or checks were signed. Instead a handshake was exchanged and honor was placed as a security deposit. Then came “the present,” when even checks and legal documents are not honored, and the threat of shaming and gossip is not a viable sanction. The refrain was “all the checks bounce.” The social scientist in me doubted this nostalgic narrative of a lost golden past and sought some form of independent, if not direct, verification. Even though non-bazaaris and the secondary literature reaffirmed these narratives, I was still skeptical.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Bazaar and State in IranThe Politics of the Tehran Marketplace, pp. 74 - 126Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007