The Yak Wool Commodity Chain and Uneven Geographic Development

• In Event: High-Altitude Commodities in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

Abstract

Despite its relatively short industry development history, yak wool as a high-altitude commodity has made it to fashion houses and popular brands in major metropolitan cities in China and western countries in the past two decades. While more than 90% of the world's yaks are found on the Tibetan Plateau, Tibetan nomads who are the suppliers only capture less than 10% of the value of the yak wool products. This paper explores the ways in which the profit of the yak wool industry disproportionately goes to other actors in the commodity chain despite Tibetan communities’ long history of consuming and trading yak wool. Adopting “follow the thing” (Marcus, 1995) as an overarching methodology, this paper explores the recent history of yak wool as a commodity by following the yak wool as it moves spatially from the point of production to the consumption end, starting from the yak wool supplier households on the Tibetan Plateau to retail stores in mega-cities like Shanghai. It explores why particular groups of people, firms, and regions are locked in low-value functions while others are linked to value-adding activities, and investigates how the valorization of yak wool through a commodity chain perpetuates the patterns of uneven geographic development at the regional and national levels in China. The intense commodification of yak wool and its processes reflect the expansion of capitalism and China’s state-led development efforts vis-à-vis factors such as technological processes, infrastructure development, and environmental regulations.

Author

• Drolma Gadou, University of Colorado-Boulder