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>
> Trust and markets. Investigating social and cultural dimensions of trust.
>
> Panel abstract for the AAA meeting in December 2009. (This panel proposal
> will be reviewed by the AAA.)
>
> Organisers: Timm Lau ([log in to unmask]) and Benjamin Rubbers
> ([log in to unmask]).
>
> A developed body of literature on trust as an analytical concept exists in
> sociology, philosophy and economics. By contrast, the anthropological
> literature is comparatively poor: with few exceptions, anthropologists
> have neglected the explicit study of trust. Some existing anthropological
> studies on bazaar economies, markets and trade networks do engage with the
> topic of trust, but remain relatively unsophisticated in dealing with
> trust as an analytical concept.
> However, anthropology has the potential to vastly enhance our
> understanding of trust, through its ethnographic method, by producing
> analyses of the negotiation of trust in context, and by taking into
> account the cultural dimension of trust as well as the creation and
> maintenance of trust in social networks. As a discipline, anthropology has
> long bridged the imagined “divide” between the economic and the moral,
> arguing that the economic life of exchange and value is intrinsically also
> moral in nature.
> By focusing on trust in the context of markets, this panel will therefore
> build on a latent tradition in anthropology, and attempt to deepen it both
> ethnographically and theoretically. The aims of the panel are twofold:
> first, to present papers that are focused on trust in markets, and thus
> build on the existing anthropological groundwork. The current crisis in
> global financial markets and the subsequent downturn in global economies
> show just how important a focused study of this topic is for our
> understanding of economic contexts. Secondly, in doing so, the panel will
> present pioneering work for the anthropological investigation of trust as
> an analytical concept more generally, and contribute to laying the
> foundations of an anthropological approach to trust. The panel presenters
> would therefore welcome papers which combine a focus on trust in the
> context of markets with anthropological theoretical sophistication.
>
> The following are possible areas of investigation within the framework of
> this panel:
> · How is trust developed, maintained and broken in the context of markets
> and economic interaction?
> · Is trust in the context of economic interaction different from trust in
> other social contexts? Does “economic trust” exist, as a distinct form of
> trust?
> · How is trust produced in markets through words, gestures, symbols,
> exchanges between persons? How is trust developed between business
> partners? How is it mediated in exchange and market relationships? How can
> we understand the importance of friendship and kinship in this context?
> · How is a break in trust at the institutional level, due for example to
> the financial crisis, negotiated at the personal level?
> · Do ethnic and other stereotypes influence the production of trust? How
> do trust relationships between individuals, for example minorities in
> business, contribute to the structuring of markets?
> Papers may also reflect on the anthropological literature to discuss how
> anthropologists have analysed trust in the past. How has the study of
> trust been developed, in which sub-fields and with which theoretical
> references? Why has trust been largely omitted from the variety of
> analytical concepts within classical anthropology? How are we to think
> about the relationship between anthropology, sociology, and economy in the
> study of trust?
> The aim of this panel is to offer empirical data and theoretical insight
> to develop an anthropology of trust. Please forward a short abstract of
> 250 words to both panel organisers no later than 15 March 2009. The above
> list of questions is not exhaustive, and all paper proposals dealing with
> trust in the context of markets (in the wider sense of the term) are
> welcome.
>
>

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