Diverse Economies Flashcards
How is capitalism represented in Marxist Political Economy?
Marxist Political Economy maybe critical of mainstream economics but still represents capitalism as dominant force
What is the discourse of capitalocentric?
Economic practice formed of diversity of capitalist and non-capitalist activities but non-capitalist ones have been relatively ‘hidden’ because concepts and discourses that could have made them ‘visible’ have been marginalized and suppressed
Gibson-Graham (1996)
Why is privileging capitalism as the representation of economy problematic
- Essentialist – Unified by common characteristic, e.g. profit-seeking, capitalist accumulation
- Deterministic – a singular set of forces that direct economic change
- Totalising – universal framework or metanarrative of the ‘global capitalist economy’ of social life
What is the difference within capitalism argument?
- Search for a political economy approach that theorises capitalism without representing dominance as natural and inevitable
- Destabilise capitalocentric discourses and representations; bring marginal activities to foreground
- ZipCar founder Chase (2015) herself states that sharing economy feeds into a revolution taking place within capitalism where roles of consumers, producers and ownership are reimagined
What is the difference from capitalism argument?
- “Dislocation” of economic associated to capitalism to enable a recognition that other economies are possible (Gibson-Graham, 1998)
- Move from critique of capitalocentric accounts to a politics of economy possibility
- Action research projects to document transactions in formally regulated and alternative markets
What does an appreciation that economic and social development does not occur in linear fashion but is proliferative open up?
Opens up understanding of an economic world wherein there are alternatives
Leyshon et al. (2009)
What is the role of language in the diverse economy?
- Language of the diverse economy as an element of dislocation that is an exploratory practice of thinking economy differently in order to perform different economies
- Deconstruction of binary hierarchies of market/nonmarket and capitalism/non-capitalism to produce a radical heterogeneous economic landscape
Gibson-Graham (1998)
What is the trouble with binary categorisations?
- Alternative economic worlds flower as capitalism stumbles into crisis but fade away as capitalism regains its feet
- What emerges at margins as alternatives may become mainstream
What do Gibson-Graham (2008) call for in the performative practices of diverse economies?
- Performative epistemology rather than realist one
- Ethical rather than structural understanding of individual behaviour and thinking
- Experimental rather than critical orientation to research
How did (post)structuralism effect the epistemology of economic geography?
- Structural approach of early economic geography understandings seemed to cement emerging world place rather than transforming
- Post-structuralism (in late 1980s) removed obligation to represent what was ‘really going on out there’ and question how theory and epistemology could advance understanding of the world
Gibson-Graham (2008)
What is performativity?
- To change our understanding is to change the world
- Making hidden and alternative economies new objects of study –> making them visible and potential objects of policy and politics
- Ability of a theory to describe and predict is not an outcome of accurate observations/calculations but a measure of the success of its “performation”
What are some non-market transactions
- Household flows
- Gift giving
- Indigenous exchange
- Hunting, fishing, gathering
- Theft, poaching
What are some alternative markets of transactions?
- Ethical ‘fair-trade’ markets
- Local trading systems
- Alternative currencies
- Underground markets
- Barter
- Informal market
How do local currencies provide alternative market transactions in Japan?
- In Japan there are 600 currency systems, including 372 branches of government initiated fureai kippu using smart cards to credit and debit elder care
- Credits earned for caring for disabled neighbour that can be transferred digitally to mother across country, so she can hire someone to care
What is ethical practice?
- Present academics are detached and critical –> theorizing tinged with scepticism and negativity
- Using Foucault’s idea of self-cultivation, can engage in ethical practice by exercising a choice to think in certain ways
- Goal of theory to provide a space of freedom and possibility rather than confining to what we already know
Gibson-Graham (2008)
