Self-sufficiency of the house is practiced in many parts of the world but ignored in economic theory, just as socialist collectivization is assumed to have brought household self-sufficiency to an end. The ideals of self-sufficiency, however, continue to shape economic activity in a wide range of postsocialist settings. This volume’s six comparative studies of postsocialist villages in Eastern Europe and Asia illuminate the enduring importance of the house economy, which is based not on the market but on the order of the house. These formations show that economies depend not only on the macro institutions of markets and states but also on the micro institutions of families, communities, and house economies, often in an uneasy relationship.
Table of Content
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Self-Sufficiency as Reality and as Myth
Stephen Gudeman and Chris Hann
Chapter 1. The Ideal of Self-Sufficiency and the Reality of Dependence: A Hungarian Case
Bea Vidacs
Chapter 2. How Much is Enough? Household Provisioning, Self-Sufficiency and Social Status in Rural Moldova
Jennifer R. Cash
Chapter 3. When the Household Meets the State: Ajvar Cooking and Householding in Postsocialist Macedonia
Miladina Monova
Chapter 4. Self-Sufficiency is Not Enough: Ritual Intensification and Household Economies in a Kyrgyz Village
Nathan Light
Chapter 5. “They Work in a Closed Circle”: Self-Sufficiency in House-Based Rural Tourism in the Rhodope Mountains, Bulgaria
Detelina Tocheva
Chapter 6. Self-Sufficiency and “Being One’s Own Master” among Transylvanian Forest Dwellers
Monica Vasile
Notes on Contributors
Index
About the author
Stephen Gudeman is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota and was formerly co-director of the Economy and Ritual project at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle. His most recent publications are Economic Persuasions (2009) and Economy and Ritual: Studies in Postsocialist Transformations (co-edited with Chris Hann, 2015).
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