Making Things Fit, Making Ends Meet. Small Entrepreneurs in Istanbul’s Garment Industry

Garment production in Istanbul has increased dramatically over the last decades. Two million people could be working in the apparel and textile industry in Istanbul today – approximately one third of the labor force of Turkey’s largest city. And Turkey is among the world’s top five garment exporters. Nonetheless regardless of industrialization plans and efforts to impose stricter security rules, most of the production is carried out in small-scale specialized workshops spread across Istanbul metropolitan municipality. The extreme disintegration of garment production has forced an increasing number of small entrepreneurs to act as a link between Turkish, or foreign retailers, and scattered producers. They became the keystone of Istanbul’s garment industry. 

This doctoral project investigates the role of these local small entrepreneurs and their shifting importance in Istanbul’s globalized garment industry. It explores from an anthropological perspective the organization of this industry, as well as the careers, commercial practices, entrepreneurial success of the small entrepreneurs in a context of deep economic restructuring. It argues that Istanbul’s garment industry shapes a distinctive assemblage of material practices, labor division and capital accumulation, whose precise analysis can provide new insights on the current dynamics of globalized capitalism.

• Thèse d'anthropologie préparée sous la direction conjointe de Michel Peraldi (EHESS) et Sabine Strasser (Université de Vienne, Autriche)
• Date de soutenance : 19 janvier 2018

Jury

• M. Michel Peraldi (Directeur de thèse), CNRS
• Mme Sabine Strasser (Directrice de thèse), Universität Wien (Autriche)
• Mme Janine Dahinden, University of Neuchâtel  (Suisse)
• M. Jean-François Pérouse, Université Toulouse 2
• Mme Tatjana Thelen, Universität Wien (Autriche)

Allocation ou financement

• 2013-2017 : Assistante de recherche à l’Institut d’anthropologie sociale de l’Université de Berne

Enseignements

• Printemps 2015 : Waste and its Ubiquity: Unnecessary, or Unavoidable? (anthropologie sociale, Berne)
• Printemps 2015 : How to Study Global Markets? (anthropologie sociale, Berne)
• Eté 2014 : Ethnographic Fieldwork Exchange Seminar (anthropologie sociale/sociologie, Berne/Ankara)
• Printemps 2014 : Exploring Turkey: Anthropological Perspectives (co-teaching Sabine Strasser, anthropologie sociale, Berne)
• Automne 2013 : The Shifting Power of Things (anthropologie sociale, Berne)
• Automne 2013 : Introduction to Social Anthropology (anthropologie sociale, Berne)
• Printemps 2013: Magic, Heroism, or Inquisition? Ethnography Revisited (anthropologie sociale, Berne)
• Hiver 2010-2011: Capitalism in Contemporary Turkey (Master Global Studies, Leipzig)
• Printemps 2010: Pushing for the ‘Global City’: Constantinople ~ 1900, Istanbul ~ 2000 (Master Global Studies, Leipzig)

Principales responsabilités

• Depuis février 2014 : Coordinatrice du projet de recherche ‘Intimate Uncertainties. Precarious Life and Moral Economy across European Borders’
• Depuis 2008 : Chercheuse associée de l’IFEA Istanbul

Principales publications

Articles scientifiques

• Piart, Luisa (2012). Le lien entre le commerce à la valise et l’industrie de la confection à Istanbul. Anatoli, 3, p. 23-39. Paris: CNRS Editions
• Piart, Luisa (2011). Made in Istanbul. La revue Economia(12), p. 34-35. CESEM
• Piart, Luisa (2009). Review: Public Istanbul. Spaces and Spheres of the Urban, edited by Frank Eckardt and Kathrin Wildner. geschichte.transnational: Fachforum zur Geschichte des kulturellen Transfers und der transnationalen Verflechtungen in Europa und der Welt. Global and European Studies Institute (Leipzig)

Article de presse ou de magazine

• Danış, Didem; Piart, Luisa (2009). Ayamama, retour sur un bassin-versant après l’inondation de septembre 2009. Compte-rendu de l’excursion urbaine du 25 novembre 2009. Blog de l'Observatoire Urbain d'Istanbul

Chapitres de livre

• Piart, Luisa (2013). Transition, Migration, Capitalism: Female Uzbek Shuttle Traders in Istanbul. In: Laruelle, Marlène (éd.) Migration and Social Upheaval as the Face of Globalization in Central Asia. Social Sciences in Asia: Vol. 34 (p. 333-354). Leiden: Brill
• Piart, Luisa (2010). Des mondes marchands mobiles: les commerçantes à la valise ouzbèkes. In: Laruelle, Marlène (éd.) Dynamiques migratoires et changements sociétaux en Asie Centrale. Sociétés et cultures post-soviétiques en mouvement (p. 247-271). Paris: Petra
• Piart, Luisa (2009). Les commerçantes ouzbèkes à la valise en partance pour Istanbul. Initiative et changements sociaux. In: Cheikh, Mériam; Peraldi, Michel (éds.) Des femmes sur les routes (p. 63-87). Casablanca & Paris: Le Fennec & Karthala

Documents issus d'une conférence ou d'un atelier

• Piart, Luisa (Novembre 2015). Waste and Fake Alaturca: Insights on the Global Fashion Industry from Istanbul (Non publié). In: 2015 Annual Conference of the Swiss Ethnological Society, Panel IV “Dirty Business: Economies of the Used, the Used Up and the Useless” (convenors: Ellen Hertz, Luisa Piart, Alice Sala, Yvan Schulz). Institute of Social Anthropology, University of Berne. 12.-14.11.2015.
• Piart, Luisa (Mai 2015). Dis/entangling Labor Relations and Equivocal Entrepreneurship in Istanbul’s Garment Industry (Non publié). In: Conference "Regular and Precarious Labour in Modern Industrial Settings". Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle. 06.-09.05.2015.
• Piart, Luisa (3 Février 2015). “Fast Fashion”, Surplus Production and Waste: Economic Devaluation and Revaluation in Istanbul’s Clothing Industry (Non publié). In: Vertiefungsvorlesung "Sozialstruktur, Politik und Wirtschaft" (Dr. Olaf Zenker). Freie Universität Berlin.
• Piart, Luisa (20 Septembre 2014). Adverse Entrepreneurs and the Moral Economy of Istanbul’s Garment Industry (Non publié). In: 7th InASEA Congress, Panel "Localising Moralities: Economy, Intimacy and Sociality in Southeast Europe" (chairs Sabine Strasser & Jelena Tosic, discussant Olaf Zenker). Kadir Has University, Istanbul.
• Piart, Luisa (1 Août 2014). Innovation-cum-precarity in Istanbul’s garment market: new strategies and settings of uncertainty (Non publié). In: 13th EASA Biennial Conference, Panel "Innovation and continuity in times of uncertainty: bridging perspectives on economic life" (convenors Niko Besnier & Susana Narotzky). Tallinn.
• Piart, Luisa (18 Juillet 2014). Waste and Fake Alaturca: Revaluation Practices in Istanbul’s Clothing Industry (Non publié). In: "Practices of Materiality" 1st Vienna Ethnography Lab. Department of Methods in the Social Sciences, Department of Science and Technology Studies, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology. University of Vienna.

Voir aussi la liste complète dans le Bern Open Repository and Information System