NRPPD Webinar Series: 06

Abstract: We investigate the failure of the cardamom  futures market in national exchanges. Being a cash crop, cardamom was expected to perform well by both researchers and practitioners. However, cardamom futures functioned only for fifteen years and eventually shutdown in 2021. We explain this development as the outcome of confrontation between rural commercial capitalists (regional market maker), and national capitalists (national market maker). Nature of cardamom itself as a quality sensitive commodity became a ground for market politics. This interaction between nature of the commodity and market structure, what we call Quapolitics resulted in the failure of cardamom futures. further, Quapolitics is presented as a means by which regional market makers attempted to handle uncertainty emanating in futures market and reproduce their sociopolitical position