Premium
THE BRIDGING ROLE OF INTERMEDIARIES IN FOOD PRODUCTION NETWORKS: INDIAN ORGANIC PEPPER IN GERMANY
Author(s) -
HASSLER MARKUS,
FRANZ MARTIN
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.766
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 1467-9663
pISSN - 0040-747X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9663.2012.00721.x
Subject(s) - intermediary , embeddedness , business , bridging (networking) , indigenous , consumption (sociology) , commodity chain , production (economics) , globalization , commerce , economics , sociology , marketing , market economy , biology , microeconomics , social science , ecology , computer network , computer science
Processes of globalisation create flows of goods and information and lead to the phenomenon of transnational cultural processes. The culture of food consumption is a distinct example for this. The paper aims to unravel the way tribal farmers of Kerala are integrated into the global economy. This is linked to the question how intermediaries construct global production networks (GPN) and play a bridging role in the diffusion of information. This includes, for example, information on the circumstances of production as well as the distinctive life‐style consumption of consumers. Based on the case of organic pepper, grown by indigenous Mannan people, it will show how the embeddedness of the production of pepper is marketed in another cultural surrounding. The paper combines the GPN approach with elements from the global value chain and the commodity cultures literature.