On Principals and Agency: Reassembling Trust in Indian Ocean Commerce

Abstract

The role of trust in long-distance trade has been a topic of inquiry and debate among economists, sociologists, and historians. Much of this literature hinges on the social, legal, and economic structures that undergird, if not obviate, the concept of trust. This article draws on assemblage theory to suggest that trust in Indian Ocean trade is better understood as a key component of a commercial assemblage. Laws or social mores are not external to but rather enrolled within an assemblage constituted by people, commodities, profits, and “feelings,” as well as judicial systems. This conceptualization of trust is demonstrated through a close analysis of one trading relationship between a Somali merchant and an Indian merchant based in Aden and trading in the Idrisi Emirate of Asir. They established a partnership to exploit elevated prices in Asir during the First World War. After several months of trading, accusations of fraud and embezzling unraveled the partnership and entangled both men in years of legal battles. By tracing the changing socio-material assemblage of this partnership, the article demonstrates how trust should be understood as a dynamic and contingent factor in the operation of commercial agency.

The Unbearable Lightness of Trust: Trade, conviviality, and the life-world of Indian export agents in Yiwu, China

“…Among Indian export traders in Yiwu, then, mistrust is valued and cultivated as an indispensable practical resource which allows the negotiation of the vagaries and volatilities of international trade under conditions of intense competition and what are experienced as restrictive regulations. Reflecting on the contentious business partnership between an Indian merchant and his Somali agent in early twentieth-century Aden, historian Johan Mathew (2019: 245) cogently writes that, ‘Trust is often experienced as a “gut feeling”. It does not itself mitigate risk, but it does make that risk palatable.’ In the case of Indian export agents in Yiwu, however, what is elicited might not be simply a ‘gut feeling’ about the trustworthiness of others, but, as Gafoor told us at the beginning of this article, the trust in one's own luck and capacity to navigate successfully the vagaries and risks of trade.…”

“…In other words, in Yiwu's export trade there are no hard-and-fast means to determine in advance whether or not any particular market player would prioritize relationships based on mutuality and trust over short-term gains. 11 If export agents share many of the broad characteristics and business orientations of colonial or post-colonial 'commission agents', they also experience similar conditions of precarity and instability (Mathew 2019). Against the predictions that informal mediation would wither away once both capital and democracy reached 'maturity', recent research has shown that in postliberalization India, different modalities of brokerage have flourished (see, for example, Picherit 2009; Roesch 2009; Björkman 2021; cf.…”

“…7 Too quickly dismissed as rent-seeking profiteers (see, for example, Neild-Basu 1984; cf. Geertz 1960), historians have underscored the centrality of commission agents and brokers in the integration and expansion of (continental and trans-continental) South Asian trade, as well as in the growth of indigenous capital (see, for example, Bayly 1983; Allen 1981; Siddiqi 1982; Ray 1988; Rudner 1994; Birla 2008; Roy 2014; Nomura 2014; Mathew 2019; Aldous 2017; cf. Davies 1952; Chapman 1979; Dethloff 1982).…”

“…To support my discussion, I will focus on the work of Indian export agents in Yiwu as an assemblage of practices, dispositions, and technologies that requires the cultivation of specific skills and social networks (Mathew 2019), but which, at the same time, elicits uncertainty and ambiguity. As a result, the reliability and trustworthiness of those who participate in the export trade emerge as necessarily contingent and contextual, making it impossible to draw hard-and-fast categorical distinctions between honourable and trustworthy players or identify those who have a penchant for sharpness (Marsden 2020).…”

New trade formations: precarity, pragmatic cosmopolitanism and long‐distance trade in the Caucasus

“…Here, expectations of betrayal rather than trust appear common in traders' networks of co-ethnics. While there is no doubt that trust, systemic or interpersonal (Mathew 2019;Tilly 2005), is useful for long-term and long-distance trade, attitudes, strategies and types of alliances among traders in Georgia show us that trusting relationships are not people's main concern. On the contrary, it is people's ability to maintain relationships in the absence of trust, often in violation (or temporary suspension) of some cultural norms, deeply felt political emotions, historical memory and so on, that is often at stake.…”