Transparency has become a ubiquitous presence in seemingly every sphere of social, economic, and political life. Yet, for all the claims that transparency works, little attention has been paid to how it works – even when it fails to achieve its goals. Instead of assuming that transparency is itself transparent, this book questions the technological practices, material qualities, and institutional standards producing transparency in extractive, commodity trading, and agricultural sites. Furthermore, it asks: how is transparency certified and standardized? How is it regimented by 'ethical' and 'responsible' businesses, or valued by traders and investors, from auction rooms to sustainability reports? The contributions bring nuanced answers to these questions, approaching transparency through four key organizing concepts, namely disclosure, immediacy, trust, and truth. These are concepts that anchor the making of transparency across the lifespan of global commodities. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Acknowledgements; Introduction: making transparency visible Matthieu Bolay, Filipe Calvão, Elizabeth Ferry and Alex Golub; Part I. Disclosure: 1. Indian tea, postcolonial governance, and the uses of transparency Sarah Besky; 2. Transparency and the meaning of sustainability Matthew Archer; 3. Opaque exchange: concealment, disclosure, and asymmetric transactions in the Indian Ocean sapphire trade Nethra Samarawickrema; Part II. Immediacy: 4. Coercive expertise and the paradox of responsible extraction in the ruby trade in Mozambique Brian Brazeal; 5. The social life of digital transparency Filipe Calvão and Emanuel Hermann; 6. 'I never looked into a diamond': the transparent ignorance of the diamond broker Sam Shuman; Part III. Trust: 7. Worth its weight: value-making with gold and transparency Elizabeth Ferry; 8. Lenses of transparency: optical disjunctures around mining and the future in Greenland's nation-building project Les Field; 9. Transparency and trust in DIY aid Andrew Walsh; Part IV. Truth: 10. Transparency and truth in organic certification Shaila Seshia Galvin; 11. Discreet transparency: dealing in plural veridictions in Swiss gold refineries Matthieu Bolay; 12. How to count vanilla: transparency trade-offs in organic certification Sarah Osterhoudt; Methodological appendix: Making global comparison possible? Filipe Calvão and Matthieu Bolay; Index.
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