Gift-Commodity Entanglements: The Case of Small-Scale Dry Goods Enterprises in the Baguio City Public Market

In her Philippine-based case study, Lynne Milgram conducts research in the Baguio City Public Market working with self-employed merchant-entrepreneurs (primarily women) who specialize in sourcing and selling imported goods that are generally not locally available. These goods may include non-Filipino processed foods and confectioneries (e.g., chocolates, coffee, tea, condiments, canned meats), cosmetics, health supplements, vitamins, and personal grooming products. Baguio’s public market entrepreneurs obtain these goods through both mainstream commercial purchases (e.g., on-line ordering, shopping at special duty-free zones in other cities) and through “gifting” channels. In the latter case, market entrepreneurs may obtain a part of their stock from goods they receive as gifts from relatives living abroad. If these merchants (and/or family members) cannot use some or all of the goods they receive as gifts they may add these items to their store’s inventory of products offered for sale.  Moreover, entrepreneurs also sponsor family and community members’ engagement in their businesses in the Philippines and in Canada in a variety of waged, non-waged, and skills- training and development arrangements.

What emerges in this case studies are the myriad channels through which “gifting-commodity-gifting” transactions become inextricably enmeshed with one another. Lynne Milgram’s ongoing research will continue to analyze how government policies in Canada and in the Philippines affect the extent to which self-employed transnational entrepreneurs can combine alternative with conventional economic activities, how power relations based on class, gender, and race may influence the effectiveness of entrepreneurs’ alternative transnational economic initiatives, and the potential for this “alternative” sphere to remain sustainable and continue to characterize the distinctive nature of small-scale Philippine-Canadian transnational enterprises.

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