Social Movements in Building Local Markets.

Abstract

In Ecuador and Colombia, a variety of networks, social movements and actors are converging in the social construction of local markets for their own products. Such initiatives constitute an alternative to long circuits in food supply chains dominated by large corporations and their effects. Social movements and organizations are creating and encouraging short circuit proposals as fairs, farmers' markets, direct selling where the products come in a direct way for consumers in baskets. This often constitutes a viable approach for the generation of income in the Andean territories. Differently from other types of markets for food products, such markets reveal a strong connection with social movement’s resources: moral, cultural, social, human, material.

Also, studies such as King and Pierce (2010) observe institutional change and innovation markets, influenced by the role that the contentiousness that social movements can bring. This market controversy helps to rework, modify or create other markets. According to the authors, the markets are challenged by actors who are unsatisfied with their results and use the market as a platform for social change.

On the other hand, Beckert (2009) defines the markets as arenas of social interaction, which can only operate if three inevitable problems of coordination are resolved. These problems are the value, the competition and cooperation. To Beckert, these problems can only be resolved if the actors of the markets are based on mutual expectations, which have their basis in social, institutional and cultural embedded in the markets.

Aspers and Beckert (2011) point out that the market players classify and categorize the goods, allowing them to distinguish their value in relation to others. The authors mention the conceptual analytical framework of Lucien Karpick, who developed the mechanisms that can be applied to determine the quality of natural goods in the markets. With these mechanisms, Karpick refers to the judgment devices that are landmarks that dissipate the opacity of the market by reducing the cognitive deficits of market actors as a result of incomplete knowledge of the products and providing reasons for the choices.

This article propose to advance for understand how the judgment devices and valuation processes can be influenced for social movements in the Andean Region. The recent fieldwork in Ecuador and Colombia evidenced that the peasant movement in their contacts and articulations can mobilize resources that contributes with the formation of the judgment devices that Karpick presents. It is interests of the article understand part of the role of social movements, its structure, social and cultural resources as well as collective action potential to mobilize actors for the social construction of markets.

Aspers and Beckert (2011) reveal that the classification of goods is not only a form of coordination, but also of distribution and mention how different types of social structures such as networks, institutions, conventions, have a role in assigning value and product prices, as well as those structures currently play an action process, focusing attention on social practices.

References:

 

Aspers, P., Beckert, J. (2011). Value in Markets, in: The Worth of Goods Valuation and pricing in the economy. Edited by Jens Beckert and Patrick Aspers. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Beckert, J. (2009). The Social Order of Markets. In: Theory and Society. MPifG Journal Articles series. Cologne, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.

King, B. e Pierce, N. (2010). The Contentiousness of Markets: Politics, Social Movements, and Institutional Change in Markets.  The Annual Review of Sociology.