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Chapter 18 - Small Trading Circuits and Micro-Logistics in Pericapitalist Markets

from Part IV - Markets in Motion: Places and Spaces

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 November 2024

By
Pascale Trompette
Edited by
Susi Geiger ,
Katy Mason ,
Neil Pollock ,
Philip Roscoe ,
Annmarie Ryan ,
Stefan Schwarzkopf  and
Pascale Trompette
Susi Geiger
Affiliation:
University College Dublin
Katy Mason
Affiliation:
Lancaster University
Neil Pollock
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
Philip Roscoe
Affiliation:
University of St Andrews, Scotland
Annmarie Ryan
Affiliation:
University of Limerick
Stefan Schwarzkopf
Affiliation:
Copenhagen Business School
Pascale Trompette
Affiliation:
Université de Grenoble
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Summary

Taking a spatial and pragmatic approach to markets, this chapter develops an understanding of small trade and its logistics in markets at the periphery of global capitalism. Based on field surveys carried out in Senegal, it examines the day-to-day interactions between wholesalers, resellers and logistics intermediaries that organize the circulation of goods within and between distributed marketplaces and spaces. The research question addresses the process of ‘scaling up’ that transforms a multitude of small hawker transactions into mass consumer markets. The analysis reveals a reticular structure interconnecting individual and informal cross-border traders and shopkeepers, resellers of differing sizes and capacities, and the interconnection of these parties by ‘coxers’ and drivers, who are actors in both micro-logistics and hawking. It shows that the daily circulation of a multitude of small batches of goods relies on logistics assemblages recomposed on a day-to-day basis, based on kinship (interpersonal alliances), tech-ship (micro-technologies) and a credit chain. It shows how this socio-technical circulation infrastructure is a key driver of market access for small traders, allows for the conquest of spatial scales, and provides a flexibility of hierarchies and trajectories as a form of market organization.

Keywords

assemblagecirculationlogisticstrading networkmarketpericapitalist
Type
Chapter
Information
Market Studies
Mapping, Theorizing and Impacting Market Action
 , pp. 294 - 314
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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