SMALL PRODUCT, BIG ISSUES - VALUE CONTESTATIONS AND CULTURAL IDENTITIES IN CROSS-BORDER COMMODITY NETWORKS

This article follows the trajectory of maize husks from their producti on sites in rural Western Mexico to diverse consumption and commercial ization locales both within the country and in the United States, show ing how the uses and meanings of specific products are continuously re assembled and transformed within the livelihoods and social networks o f Mexicans living in a transnational world. By highlighting the multip licities and ambiguities of social value and cultural identities impli cit in the workings of commodity chains and globalization processes, t he study leads to a questioning of commodity-chain analysis. It also c hallenges theories of cultural production and circulation based on a u nified and hierarchical system of value.