Assembling the land of milk and money : the work of money in New Zealand’s dairy industry : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Geography at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
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Date
2023
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Massey University
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Abstract
Academic and media narratives about the New Zealand dairy industry have reinforced a portrayal which emphasises its steady, almost inevitable evolution into ‘the backbone’ of New Zealand’s export economy. In these narratives rising export revenues have been taken as proof of the valuableness of the dairy industry. However, in this thesis I argue that these currently prevalent understandings of the dairy industry uncritically accept a definition of money as just being a commodity that simply facilitates exchange and measures value. Drawing on my concept of moneyness, my thesis re-investigates money as a form of work and contributes to a different understanding of the dairy industry that re-narrates it as an effect of the way this money work practically assembles and reassembles sets of relations. My moneyness analysis highlights how previously inconspicuous relations became stabilised through the work of tax, loans, and shares, by following moments of controversy to where the way money and the dairy industry worked were practically changed. The work of tax shows how solving the problem of state revenue also translated value into other relations which made the early dairy industry valuable as a sterling accumulation machine. The work of loans shows how the dairy industry became creditable because of the way relations between the state, financial system and dairy industry have been maintained. The work of shares shows how overcoming various problems has arranged and re-arranged cooperative dairy industry value, making it stably commensurable with national value. The effect is to present a historical arc of New Zealand’s dairy industry as characterised by a dynamism that is locally arranged and historically adaptable. The thesis concludes that the creative practices of moneyness have continually stabilised the dairy industry, not in spite of disruptions but because of them.
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Dairy products industry, Dairying, Economic aspects, Money, New Zealand