Hierarchies of trade in Yiwu and Dushanbe: The case of an Uzbek merchant family from Tajikistan

Abstract

This article focuses on the trading trajectory of an Uzbek family of merchants from Tajikistan. This family runs businesses in both Tajikistan's capital, Dushanbe, and China's famous international trading city: Yiwu. The analysis is centred on the accounts placed by Tajikistan's Uzbek merchants about their historically sustained experience, often across several generations, in trading activities. These merchants' claims of belonging to a 'historical' trading community rather than being 'newcomers' to long-distance commerce are articulated in relation to notions of 'hierarchies of trade' as they evolve in a twofold relational model linking Yiwu's Changchun neighbourhood and Dushanbe. I suggest that the forms of conviviality enacted in Yiwu's Changchun neighbourhood need to be understood in terms of the historical, multinational and transregional contacts that have occurred within the spaces of the former Soviet Union, as well as along the China-Russia and China-Central Asian borders. Equally, the hierarchies of trade of Uzbek merchants from Tajikistan in Yiwu's Changchun neighbourhood cut-across markers of identity that juxtapose the roles of Tajik and Uzbek communities in Tajikistan's contemporary politics and economics.

The Ethics of Commerce and Trade

“…Perhaps more interesting, however, is the important role that merchants play themselves in the making of institutions that play a critical role in the pooling of knowledge and reputation. Recent studies thus have shown how in the trading nodes of the twenty-first century restaurants regularly form the type of institution in which merchants 'foster durable networks' because they facilitate the pooling of reputation, dispute resolution, and the building of shared sensibilities and familiarity (Marsden and Anderson 2020;Anderson 2020;Ibañez Tirado 2018).…”

Trade ‘outside the law’: Uzbek and Afghan transnational merchants between Yiwu and South-Central Asia

“…Farhod and several other informants often argued that producing this type of packaging and labels, as well as the counterfeit brands themselves, represented 'the only way' they could sell and make a profit from products purchased in Yiwu. In Tajikistan, Farhod and other informants told us that only by paying bribes could they import to the country the merchandise they purchased in Chinaa common dimension of the region's 'informal economies' (see introduction in this issue; Rasanayagam 2011; Morris and Polese 2013; Makovicky and Henig 2017;Ibañez-Tirado 2018).…”

Trade ‘outside the law’: Uzbek and Afghan transnational merchants between Yiwu and South-Central Asia

“…Farhod and several other informants often argued that producing this type of packaging and labels, as well as the counterfeit brands themselves, represented 'the only way' they could sell and make a profit from products purchased in Yiwu. In Tajikistan, Farhod and other informants told us that only by paying bribes could they import to the country the merchandise they purchased in Chinaa common dimension of the region's 'informal economies' (see introduction in this issue; Rasanayagam 2011;Morris and Polese 2013;Makovicky and Henig 2017;Ibañez-Tirado 2018).…”

“…She closed her office in Seoul to expand her business in China through the commercialization of raw material (especially the import of metals used in construction, and the export of diverse fittings for construction). Trading networks from Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in Yiwu operate on a smaller scale than both those of Afghan background and those connected to Afghanistan; yet among the traders from Tajikistan, those who identify themselves as being Uzbek tend to form networks that cross borders and regions (Ibañez-Tirado 2018). For this reason, we focus on networks of traders from Uzbek background that involve mainly Tajikistan's citizens.…”