Smuggled Goods Portingand Social Discrimination (Critical Ethnography of Non-Institutional Actors and Institutional Brokers in the Field of Baneh Border Trade)

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

1 Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Allameh Tabataba'i University, Tehran, Iran

2 Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Allameh Tabataba'i University, Allameh Tabataba'i University, Tehran

10.22059/jisr.2023.342184.1299

Abstract

With the progressive withdrawal of some governments from social responsibilities, cross-border trade has become the primary source of income, and residents of border areas and institutional agents are considering it as an alternative to development. In this way of life, the smuggled goods porterare a symbol of alienation and rejection, as they are perpetually exposed to conflict due to the absence of favorable conditions. The purpose of this study is to examine smuggled goods porter’s social exclusion from the perspectives of non-institutional actors and institutional agents, mediated by life experience and smuggled goods porter’s situation in cross-border trade. In the theoretical section, the critical perspective of theorists such as Foucault, Bourdieu, and Vranken has been utilized to formulate concepts in accordance with the objectives and questions.
In accordance with the critical paradigm, critical ethnography was used to conduct research operations in the method section. The target population consists of institutional and non-institutional actors associated with smuggled goods porters in the border trade sector in the town of Baneh.Using targeted and snowball sampling methods, 49 informed and involved participants were chosen for semi-structured interviews.
The results demonstrated that smuggled goods porters’ life experience in cross-border commerce was characterized by powerlessness, bureaucratization, suspended citizenship, institutional discrimination, degrading, increasing marginalization, spectacle, an insecure and painful living environment.
Smuggled goods porting is a structural and historical phenomenon that has been shaped and maintained by mechanisms, as stated in the conclusion? The social exclusion woven into the fabric of border areas is one of the most significant of these mechanisms. Smuggled goods porting behavior is a result of exclusion, and its perpetuation has been accelerated.

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