Shifting transactional identities: Bazaar-style trade and risk management in the prestige economy of the Gabor Roma (Romania)

Abstract

This chapter focuses on brokerage in the prestige economy of the Gabor Roma ethnic subgroup in Romania. It argues that the necessity of the brokers’ employment as well as their economic importance comes from the significant uncertainty characterising the prestige-object transactions, that is, these brokers are occasional entrepreneurs specialised in risk management. The theoretical purpose of the chapter is to demonstrate that brokers and goods mediated by them can be associated with more than one socially constructed transactional identity (cultural, political, economic, etc.) at the same time. It also aims to highlight the shifting nature of these identities – they are not constant and context-free qualities, but highly context-sensitive social constructions that can appear in various combinations.

Citation

Berta, P. (2010), "Shifting transactional identities: Bazaar-style trade and risk management in the prestige economy of the Gabor Roma (Romania)", Wood, D.C. (Ed.) Economic Action in Theory and Practice: Anthropological Investigations (Research in Economic Anthropology, Vol. 30), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 277-308. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0190-1281(2010)0000030015