| dc.description.abstract | This thesis examines the production of different forms of value within everyday life in rural Kurdistan, Iraq. Based on participant observation and semi-structured interviews, the ethnography interrogates how the villagers of the Gara mountains in Duhok governorate, Kurdistan, Iraq make their living. Reflecting on value in villagers’ everyday lives, I reconceptualise the political economy of Iraq and Kurdistan, while arguing for a wider definition of economy that takes into consideration how humans produce multiple values outside, as well as in relation to, capital, that are essential to an understanding of economy in rural Kurdistan, Iraq. Thus, throughout the following chapters, I scrutinise the production of capital (monetary value) in its relation to non-monetary value production, including moral norms around life in the villages, useful and inalienable labour, the sharing of harvests, non-commodified ties to land, and the personhood of villagers. I contextualise this within different forces of devaluation, including the historical withdrawal of capital from within agriculture, the legacy of the international UN sanctions (1991-2003) against Iraq, and extended periods of war that continue to this day, resulting in the feeling of dislocation in everyday life. Thereby, I point out how these devaluations are based on a capitalist understanding through which villagers’ lives are framed as organised ‘merely’ around non- commodity values. Employing value as a lens to deconstruct this understanding by way of an intimate, in-depth understanding of Iraqi Kurdistan’s political economy, I shift the perspective towards the importance of non-commodity values for making a living. | en_GB |
