Other Transitions: Multiple Economies of Moscow Households in the 1990s

Abstract

This article examines survival strategies of urban households in post-socialist cities during the transition from the Soviet system to a market economy. The article links the outcomes of systemic transformation to the daily lives of households and connects urban change induced by mass privatization to class and gender processes inside the households. These “other transitions” in everyday class and gender processes are consistently overlooked by macroeconomic approaches that dominate among transition theorists and policy consultants. The focus is on households in a Moscow neighborhood who attempt to meet the competing demands of earning income, fulfilling domestic responsibilities, and securing child care in a rapidly changing urban context. The diverse formal and informal economic practices of households are analyzed using the model of “multiple economies” that include paid work, informal work for cash, unpaid domestic labor, and help in kind, labor, and cash from networks of extended family, friends, and neighbors. Mapping the typically invisible transformations of multiple economies of households contributes to creating alternative geographies of transition that are rooted in daily household experiences, acknowledges the existence of multiple economies practices, and emphasizes their importance for household social reproduction. The research combined qualitative interviewing with GIS (geographic information systems) in order to develop the model of multiple economies, elicit household perspectives on urban change, and provide the information for mapping of the landscape of multiple economies. GIS was also used to understand the dynamics of local urban change resulting from privatization.