This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Smith, A. Articles by Stenning, A. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Beyond household economies: articulations and spaces of economic practice in postsocialism

Department of Geography, Queen Mary, University of London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS, UK, a.m.smith{at}qmul.ac.uk

Alison Stenning

Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies, School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, UK

While there has already been an engaged critique of the `transition to capitalism', less work has explored the limits of the dominant capitalocentric accounts of postsocialism. In this paper, we argue that capitalist development in postsocialist societies should be seen as one part of a diverse economy, constituted by a host of economic practices articulated with one another in dynamic and complex ways and in multiple sites and spaces. To make this argument, we develop three interlinked points. First, we suggest that many of the prevailing conceptualizations of diverse economic practices in postsocialism fail to address adequately the multiple geographies within which such practices are constituted, enabled and constrained. Second, we argue that in much of the literature only limited attention has been paid to the articulation of capitalist and non-capitalist economies and to the mutually constitutive sets of social relations that underpin the diverse economies of postsocialism. Lastly, we focus on the political and moral economy of postsocialism's diverse economies and ask how these practices should be valued. We conclude by arguing that central to any understanding of the diverse economies of postsocialism must be a recognition of the power relations which shape and are shaped by the articulations and geographies of economic practices. This recognition, we argue, enables the possibility of reassessing the place, politics and value of such practices.

Key Words: formal and informal economies • geographies of practice • household and diverse economies • postsocialism • survival and livelihood strategies

Progress in Human Geography, Vol. 30, No. 2, 190-213 (2006)
DOI: 10.1191/0309132506ph601oa


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				C. Berndt and M. Boeckler Geographies of circulation and exchange: constructions of markets Progress in Human Geography, August 1, 2009; 33(4): 535 - 551. [Abstract] [PDF]