Incorporating craft: An experiment in community ownership in postliberalization India

Jane E. Lynch

Economic Anthropology, 2022, vol. 9, issue 1, 84-98

Abstract: This article traces the efforts of India's largest private retailer of craft—Fabindia—to realize its vision of “inclusive capitalism” by creating a network of “community‐owned companies” in which artisan‐suppliers own shares. The contradictions and tensions inherent to this corporate project offer a critical vantage from which to examine processes of economic and political change both in India and globally. This ethnography reveals how the proposal to replace the traditional middleperson with a corporate body introduced new complications and conflicting interests throughout the supply chain. The competing efforts to determine the terms and nature of the relationships between supplier‐shareholders, the community‐owned companies, and Fabindia illuminate the on‐the‐ground negotiation of corporate social responsibility.

Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/sea2.12239

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:ecanth:v:9:y:2022:i:1:p:84-98

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=2330-4847

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Economic Anthropology from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().