ABSTRACT This paper explores how, despite relatively undifferentiated economic, cultural and land... more ABSTRACT This paper explores how, despite relatively undifferentiated economic, cultural and land tenure conditions, some farmers in a rural area of Hebei Province, north-east China, have managed to devise innovative livelihood activities that provide them with better living standards than the majority of villagers. The research concludes that the dynamics of farmer innovations emerge from a variety of factors: the building of effective social networks and sources of information, ‘enlightenment’ deriving from small-group interactions, and the construction of trust relations, self-help and cooperation. These factors belong to the sphere of social resources rather than to those of natural, physical, human or financial assets. Hence it is social components that constitute the mobilizers of change in regard to farmers’ livelihood development.
This article follows the trajectory of maize husks from their production sites in rural Western M... more This article follows the trajectory of maize husks from their production sites in rural Western Mexico to diverse consumption and commercialization locales both within the country and in the United States, showing how the uses and meanings of speci®c products are continuously reassembled and transformed within the livelihoods and social networks of Mexicans living in a transnational world. By highlighting the multiplicities and ambiguities of social value and cultural identities implicit in the workings of commodity chains and globalization processes, the study leads to a questioning of commodity-chain analysis. It also challenges theories of cultural production and circulation based on a uni®ed and hierarchical system of value.
The extended case which forms the core of this chapter represents a journey into the everyday liv... more The extended case which forms the core of this chapter represents a journey into the everyday lives of bureaucrats and peasants in Jalisco, Mexico. The ethnography provided the means by which the researchers could begin to explore the different bodies of ...
This volume traces the development of the central highlands, one of Peru's major min... more This volume traces the development of the central highlands, one of Peru's major mining regions. It draws on extensive fieldwork carried out in Peru between 1970 and 1982, spanning a reforming military government, reaction and a return to civilian politics under Belaunde. ...
The chapter identifies key components of the new patterns of farming and rural livelihoods emergi... more The chapter identifies key components of the new patterns of farming and rural livelihoods emerging in Latin America in the twenty-first century. By the beginning of the millennium, most rural areas of Latin America had become integrated into global agricultural commodity networks that ...
ABSTRACT This paper explores how, despite relatively undifferentiated economic, cultural and land... more ABSTRACT This paper explores how, despite relatively undifferentiated economic, cultural and land tenure conditions, some farmers in a rural area of Hebei Province, north-east China, have managed to devise innovative livelihood activities that provide them with better living standards than the majority of villagers. The research concludes that the dynamics of farmer innovations emerge from a variety of factors: the building of effective social networks and sources of information, ‘enlightenment’ deriving from small-group interactions, and the construction of trust relations, self-help and cooperation. These factors belong to the sphere of social resources rather than to those of natural, physical, human or financial assets. Hence it is social components that constitute the mobilizers of change in regard to farmers’ livelihood development.
This article follows the trajectory of maize husks from their production sites in rural Western M... more This article follows the trajectory of maize husks from their production sites in rural Western Mexico to diverse consumption and commercialization locales both within the country and in the United States, showing how the uses and meanings of speci®c products are continuously reassembled and transformed within the livelihoods and social networks of Mexicans living in a transnational world. By highlighting the multiplicities and ambiguities of social value and cultural identities implicit in the workings of commodity chains and globalization processes, the study leads to a questioning of commodity-chain analysis. It also challenges theories of cultural production and circulation based on a uni®ed and hierarchical system of value.
The extended case which forms the core of this chapter represents a journey into the everyday liv... more The extended case which forms the core of this chapter represents a journey into the everyday lives of bureaucrats and peasants in Jalisco, Mexico. The ethnography provided the means by which the researchers could begin to explore the different bodies of ...
This volume traces the development of the central highlands, one of Peru's major min... more This volume traces the development of the central highlands, one of Peru's major mining regions. It draws on extensive fieldwork carried out in Peru between 1970 and 1982, spanning a reforming military government, reaction and a return to civilian politics under Belaunde. ...
The chapter identifies key components of the new patterns of farming and rural livelihoods emergi... more The chapter identifies key components of the new patterns of farming and rural livelihoods emerging in Latin America in the twenty-first century. By the beginning of the millennium, most rural areas of Latin America had become integrated into global agricultural commodity networks that ...
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Papers by Norman Long