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

Abstract

Drawing on ethnographic data collected in China, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and India, this article explores the life-world and practices of small-scale Indian export agents based in Yiwu, China, the world centre for the export of small commodities. It shows that in a market overdetermined by fast-moving goods, short-term gains, and low margins, export agents have to steer their way between acting with extreme caution or taking risks with their clients and suppliers. These apparently contradictory dispositions or orientations are negotiated by the judicious exercise of mistrust and suspicion. The article suggests not only that mistrust is valued and cultivated as an indispensable practical resource for success in Yiwu's export trade, but that contingent relations of trust between market players emerge at the interstices of a generalized mutual mistrust, via the mobilization of practices of hospitality, commensality, and masculine conviviality. Indeed, feelings of amity and mutuality elicited by the performance of modalities of social intimacy become the affective terrain upon which divergent economic interests might be reconciled and taken forward. That is, mistrust might not lead to generalized distrust, instead a situational or contingent trust might actually emerge through the judicious exercise of mistrust.

The moderating role of trust in influencing the effectiveness of export incentives of exporters in the ASEAN

“…Feelings of amity and mutuality elicited by the performance of modalities of social intimacy become the affective terrain upon which divergent economic interests might be reconciled and taken forward. Actually, in the view of Osella (2021), trust is always in short supply. In some cases, the characteristics of the export trade require wrapping of the careful management of mistrust and suspicion within a language of mutuality and amity, in which affective relations and economic calculation are folded onto each other (Osburg, 2013; Armytage, 2015).…”

“…In some cases, the characteristics of the export trade require wrapping of the careful management of mistrust and suspicion within a language of mutuality and amity, in which affective relations and economic calculation are folded onto each other (Osburg, 2013; Armytage, 2015). Importantly, the apparent tension between mistrust and trust is neither resolved nor erased (Gudeman, 2009), but is worked through and navigated “via the performance of forms of hospitality which seek to elicit a degree of amity and mutuality between market players” (Osella, 2021, p. 3).…”

“…While some studies find that trust improves performance (Cullen et al , 2000; Zhang et al , 2003), several others reveal the absence of a significant direct link between trust and performance (Aulakh et al , 1996; Fryxell et al , 2002; Inkpen and Currall, 1997; Sarkar et al , 2001; Osella, 2021) and still another (Lyles et al , 1999) reports a negative relationship with performance. Such discordant findings suggest not only that trust’s relationship to performance is complex and poorly understood but also that trust may not improve outcomes under all circumstances (Katsikeas et al , 2009).…”

“…In his study, Osella (2021) argues that 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 in Asian country contexts. It may be the case for this study that trust weakly moderates the association between export incentives and importer role performance.…”