Economic Subjectivity Research Articles

Transformative social innovation and rural collaborative workspace assemblages as a means of prefiguring community economies

Background Collaborative Workspaces are rapidly growing and evolving across the world. Traditionally understood as an urban phenomenon, most research understands them as either ‘entrepreneurial-led’, as profit-driven and commercial spaces such as business incubators and accelerators, or ‘community-led’ as being bottom-up, not-for-profit ventures aimed at catering for the needs of their community. Recent years however have seen their diffusion beyond large urban agglomerations to small towns and villages, with their functions assumed to be more community-orientated. At the same time, social innovation, or social innovation processes have been gaining prominence in academia, policy, and practice, as they address societal problems and hold potential for new forms of social relations. This paper attempts to provide a novel framework towards understanding the transformative potential of rural collaborative workspaces, as they engage in processes of social innovation, by drawing from diverse and community economies literature and assemblage thinking. Methods The paper uses international case study comparison between rural Austria and Greece (One case from each country). Methods applied were: semi-structured interviews (N=28), participant observation and focus groups (2). Results Community-led rural collaborative workspaces hold transformative potential from i) their ability to assist rural actors with their capacities and realizing their desires and ii) changing individual subjectivities towards collective. Through changing social relations in praxis and perceptions, we examine how social innovation processes through collaborative workspaces can be understood as a means of opening new economic subjectivities towards creating community economies as their transformative potential. Conclusions Although rural collaborative workspaces hold potential for societal transformation, they require further institutionalization and support to move beyond the interstitial and symbiotic stages of transformation.

Sexo, drogas y ¿cárcel? Subjetividades modernas en <i>Intimidades de una cualquiera</i> (1974)

The aim of this this paper is to analyse the film Intimidades de una cualquiera (1974) by Armando Bó and Isabel Sarli in relation to the social, economic, and cultural modernisation of the 1960s and 1970s. We consider the prison to be the key space-concept of the film in which the complex reformulation of sexual, religious, and economic subjectivities is concentrated. Within the broader theoretical framework of modernity, we establish a dialogue between the history of gender and sexuality, reception studies, critical theories of spectatorship and the recent critical revaluation of exploitation cinemas. From this perspective, we argue that the production, narrative, and reception of the film are grounded in subjective and institutional contradictions that transcend any simple dichotomy between tradition and modernity.

Экономическая природа и содержание конкурентоспособности региона: нарративный подход

Regional competitiveness remains a debated issue. This problem requires a solution, as competitiveness is now seen not only as an indicator of achievement, but also as a tool for performance assessment of regional authorities. Additionally, a correct understanding of the essence of this phenomenon helps define objectives and tools of regional policy and management. The article aims to reveal the true nature of regional competitiveness as a form of competitiveness and describe its specific characteristics. The content analysis of relevant foreign and Russian publications shows that the stated problem cannot be solved by existing methods. Therefore, it is necessary to apply a fundamentally different approach that looks at the problem from the standpoint of struggle for economic benefits. A system-reproductive method of analysis demonstrated that, by its nature, competitiveness is the ability of economic entities to redistribute economic value in their favour. Regional competitiveness is interpreted as a form of competitiveness, occurring when regions acquire economic subjectivity. Such subjectivity is characterised by the presence of separate material interests, authority and regulatory powers resulting from the transformation of regions into elements of the productive forces of society. This creates competition between regions for investment resources necessary to achieve regional goals. Regional competitiveness is defined as the ability of a region to redistribute investment flows in its favour by creating an attractive environment and incentives for their application. The given interpretation, which adequately describes the nature of regional competitiveness, has a number of advantages, such as syntheticity, sustainability, flexibility and operability.

The Economic Politics of Anti‐Displacement Struggle: Connecting Diverse and Community Economies Research with Critical Urban Studies on the Carpenters Estate, London

AbstractThis article explores the economic politics of anti‐displacement struggle, bringing into conversation critical urban studies and diverse and community economies research. It draws on my research and collaboration with a community planning group which emerged from residents’ and businesses’ struggle against displacement on the Carpenters Estate in Newham, London in 2012/13. My analysis makes visible the ways in which anti‐displacement struggle both animates and limits the production of new economic subjectivities, language, and possibilities for collective action. Ideas and tools from diverse and community economies research—lightly held and adapted for specific struggles and contexts—can help to support and strengthen these messy and fragile economic politics. The article advances diverse and community economies research on antagonism and the diversity of capitalism and contributes to re‐orienting critical urban research towards the production of economic alternatives.

Этнопсихологические особенности экономического самоопределения монгольских предпринимателей

The article presents investigations of the Irkutsk research school of economic ethnopsychology. Based on a theoretical and empirical analysis the author identified key factors of economic self-determination of small business individuals. The author conducted a cross-cultural study on the sampling of 161 people, 72 of whom were Mongol entrepreneurs doing their business in Ulan-Bator, and 89 of whom were Russian small business individuals from Irkutsk. The article presents the results of the empirical study, which has found that the most significant factors in the organization of economic self-determination are economic subjectivity, subjective economic well-being, entrepreneurship appeal, competitiveness, economic risk, value for money, scenarios of economic behavior, time-dependent prospects.

Cognitive-economic subjectivity of individual’s development in the formation of positive motivation for entrepreneurship: Evaluation of the effectiveness

Introduction. The article is devoted to the study of the problem of increasing students’ positive motivation for and interest in entrepreneurship. The purpose of the study is to evaluate and substantiate the effectiveness of cognitive-economic subjectivity of individual’s development in the formation of positive motivation for entrepreneurship. Materials and Methods. The theoretical basis of the study is the philosophy of holism. Therefore, the system-synergetic and transdisciplinary principles were used to solve the problems and to develop integrated didactic content. The ascertaining and forming stages of the educational experiment were carried out, and experimental methods of educational research and methods of mathematical statistics for processing empirical data (Wilcoxon test) were applied. Results. The article explores the effectiveness of initial preparation of students for business. The effectiveness of applying systemic-synergetic and transdisciplinary principles to the development of integrated content in physics and the basics of Economics is justified. The formation of students' cognitive-economic subjectivity, which characterizes the level of the motivational-need stage of students' readiness for entrepreneurship, is clarified. At the same time, the level of task performance indicates the formation of students’ cognitive-economic motivation for entrepreneurship. The concept of holism made it possible, on the basis of the system-synergetic principle, to single out the property of coherence of the studied independently known concepts of ‘cognitive subjectivity’ and ‘economic subjectivity’ and to prove their emergence. At the same time, cognition indicates a conscious knowledge-oriented level of practical actions of an entrepreneur, and the economic component indicates their pragmatic orientation of thinking and actions. Conclusions. The experimental study revealed the effectiveness of applying the didactic content of the specialized course of entrepreneurial education for the development of the business sector.

From Satsaṅg to Stage: Negotiating Aesthetic Theologies and Aspirational Subjectivities in a North Indian Bhajan Competition

Abstract Malvi nirguṇ bhajans, songs once used primarily for spiritual contemplation, are now being performed onstage in a variety of new contexts. I argue that these contexts are more than commercial opportunities and provide performers the opportunity to engage in new processes of self-authorship that I term “aspirational subjectivities.” These subjectivities amalgamate spiritual frameworks of aspiration derived from mystical poetry, socioreligious frameworks of aspiration inspired by lower-caste activist movements, and socioeconomic frameworks of aspiration spurred by India's neoliberal zeitgeist. This article demonstrates how musicians negotiate spiritual, social, and economic aspirational subjectivities through performance practice to overcome long-internalized stigmas of caste discrimination.

Features of sociological diagnostics methodology for measuring the level of financial and economic culture as an economic parameter

The presented study is a comprehensive scientific investigation that includes an analysis of existing materials on the topic of financial and economic culture and related concepts (such as financial literacy, economic culture, economic consciousness and attitudes) and a description of an original sociological diagnostics methodology for determining the level of financial and economic culture of any social group. The methodology makes it possible to reduce the final value of the measurement of financial and economic culture to a certain level value (high, medium, or low), which in turn makes it possible to compare and track the dynamics of data based on the preferred socio-demographic data of the group of respondents under investigation. The author identifies deterministic indicators of financial and economic subjectivity that are measured by weights, which is indicative of the objectivity of the obtained results. The methodology was tested as part of a research project (under the guidance of Prof., PhD. A. G. Tyurikova) at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation.

Diverse values of surplus for a community economy of fish(eries)

This paper develops a diverse economies account of fish ‘waste’ that revalues it as ‘surplus’. We examine ‘Kai Ika’, a community marine conservation experiment in Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland), Aotearoa New Zealand. Kai Ika rescues fish heads, frames and offal that were previously ‘going to waste’ and redistributes them to fish eaters who would otherwise struggle to access these foods. It involves fishers and community sector and Indigenous actors in an initiative that converts would‐be waste into surplus. We examine the case as a diverse economic project that nourishes humans, enhances respect for fish as living beings, and potentially conserves marine resources in the face of global‐to‐local fisheries depletion. The research is based on community‐gathered fish parts collection data, and virtual and email interview data. We analyse this data to produce an account of diverse ‘object values’ and fish‐related surpluses that derive from surplus labour and other socio‐cultural and environmental surplus. We argue that reframing fish economies in this way encourages new and diverse economic subjectivities and a more connected, relational and cooperative community economy of fish.

ACHIEVEMENTS AND CHALLENGES OF UKRAINE’S EUROPEAN INTEGRATION

The issues of Ukraine’s development within the framework of the European integration project and its transformation under the influence of the convergence processes of the EU economies, Brexit, and the search for a new «European identity» are studied. The influence of European integration on the dynamics of social and macroeconomic development of Ukraine after the signing of 2014 and the implementation of the Association Agreement with the EU is revealed. The main achievements of Ukraine’s European integration are highlighted, which are mainly related to the improvement of its institutional environment, the formation of civil society, the growth of trade between Ukraine and the EU, increasing Ukraine’s capacity to overcome internal crises, including those related to the ongoing armed conflict. Donbass and modernization of the national system of public administration. Emphasis is placed on the key challenges of Ukraine’s European integration, which must be in the field of view of the national government in order to effectively overcome them through the tools of state regulation. It is established that the most serious challenges of Ukraine’s European integration are related to the problems of economic growth, deindustrialization, structural and dynamic disparities in foreign trade, macro-financial stability, as well as the inhibition of convergence between Ukraine and the EU. The key institutional challenges related to the implementation of the Agreement and institutional crises in the development of the EU have been identified. It is substantiated that Ukraine needs the reconstruction of the national economy in accordance with the new architecture in Europe and the world, which provides, in particular, the restoration of Ukraine’s own identity and economic subjectivity on the basis of social justice, which will ultimately contribute to its socio-economic convergence and full integration with the EU.

Event spaces and the shaping of economic subjectivity: Inside the Social Enterprise World Forum

Drawing on observations at the 2017 Social Enterprise World Forum (SEWF) – a global conference held in Christchurch, New Zealand – this paper examines the significance of localised event spaces in shaping economic subjects and, by extension, economic sectors. Conferences such as the SEWF are sites and moments that provide access to new knowledge, foster collective action and shape the subjectivities of economic actors. We describe how the SEWF cultivated sympathetic affective responses towards social enterprise and the subject position of the social entrepreneur, and demonstrate how the local specificities of Christchurch, as a place, were key to the cultivation of social-entrepreneurial subjectivity at the SEWF.

МЕТОДОЛОГІЧНІ ОСНОВИ ЗАБЕЗПЕЧЕННЯ СТРАТЕГІЧНОГО УПРАВЛІННЯ КОНКУРЕНТНИМ РОЗВИТКОМ РЕГІОНУ НА ОСНОВІ ЦІЛЕПОКЛАДАННЯ

The analysis of the functions and results of strategic management of the development of the region was carried out, which showed that goal-setting becomes its most important function, and the main result is a system of goals and strategies for regional development. Strategic processes in the region require the presence of strategic goals, the creation of a mechanism for their transformation into strategies and strategic actions that provide access to capital of different levels and the competitiveness of the region as a unification of the goals of stakeholders. The analysis of the region as a state-territorial entity, as a system, as an organization, as a subject of strategic management, was carried out, which made it possible to develop a system of relevant concepts of the region and use a comprehensive methodology for studying the strategic goal-setting of the development of the region on a system-dialectical basis. As a result of using this methodology to analyze the region as a subject of development, the nature, factors of the formation of economic subjectivity and the products of its activity are determined. The main products of the region's activities are: the competitiveness of the region and its subsystems: social, economic, managerial, environmental, infrastructural, institutional, security; competitive public goods; competitive resources and potentials of the region. Thus, the concept of a region as a subject of economic development is based on the integration of the properties of a region as a state-territorial entity, system, organization, subject of strategic goal-setting. The region as a subject of economic development is a territorial-organizational economic system that has multi-level governing bodies and a system of goals, providing a functional dominant of the progress of population reproduction, entrepreneurship and potential in the interests of present and future generations within a single state, taking into account a dynamic external environment. Thus, the authorities should integrate the generalized goals of the region as a whole, organize the purposefulness of the population and other subjects of the region and form "their" goals within the framework of state federal goals of a higher level.

Imposition to agonism: Voluntary poverty alleviation resettlement in rural China

Implementation of voluntary Poverty Alleviation Resettlement (PAR) in Shanxi Province, rural China is a function of the democratic processes of village governance under the Organic Law of Villages Committees and Assemblies. Villages consult with their constituent households on the decision to resettle and aspects of the process of rebuilding homes and livelihood adaptations. This article analyses the participatory process through an analytic of government that exposes the contingency of local governance as liberal techniques are negotiated amongst historical illiberal governance norms. Processes of subjection during resettlement decision making and implementation defy a liberal/illiberal binary as the effects of power during governance can have a duel nature. These effects produce dialectical tensions that the local Party-state draws on to smooth consent for their political economic goals. Villagers in response draw on multiple political and economic subjectivities to reposition themselves and contest intersubjective norms that define relations between governor and governed. Contestation is most aptly defined as agonism which represents the permanent provocation (Foucault, 1982) between liberal and illiberal governance and the potential for equitable resettlement outcomes.

Making Real Estate Markets: The Co‐Production of Race and Property Value in Early 20thCentury Appraisal Science

AbstractAnalysing the standardisation of appraisal alongside the development of modern real estate markets in the early 20thcentury, this article demonstrates that the construction of a racialised proper(tied) economic subjectivity was pivotal for realtors’ ability to secure legitimacy and profit as a burgeoning profession. Appraisal embedded racial logics within real estate markets such that their routine functioning could generate the submarket differentiation necessary for the realisation of class‐monopoly rent. This study’s focus on appraisal before federal redlining addresses key lacunae in the historiography of segregation by foregrounding markets’ historical function as infrastructures that produce and spatialise the social difference crucial for profit in real estate. This article also seeks to inform engagements with contemporary processes of land speculation, commodification, and financialisation shaping US cities by advocating attention to the specific mechanisms that constitute race as a modality for the appropriation of surplus by real estate capital.

Magical capitalism, gambler subjects: South Korea’s bitcoin investment frenzy

ABSTRACT ‘First, it was just tech people. Now, literally everyone is interested in bitcoin’, said CNN News while reporting on the bitcoin mania that haunted South Korean society in the winter of 2017–2018. This study takes that speculative frenzy as an entry point for exploring lay bitcoin investors’ experiences and the ‘magical’ features of contemporary financial capitalism. It first situates the bitcoin investment boom in the contexts of South Korea’s post-developmental transition and the rise of mass investment culture. Drawing upon participant observation of online communities for South Korea’s bitcoin investors, this study then demonstrates how lay bitcoin investors’ daily beliefs and practices are distinguished from more traditional economic subjectivities – namely, disciplined workers and rational investors. Lay bitcoin investors present themselves not simply as calculative investors but also as enchanted gamblers who often rely upon magical formulas and rituals that express their hopes and despairs in the face of an uncertain future. Instead of dismissing their beliefs and rituals as ‘irrational exuberance’, this study argues that their cultural practices should be understood as a reflexive response to the ‘magical’ mechanisms of the financial market based on self-referential valuation and self-fulfilling performativity. In examining how the logics of uncertainty and magic are returned at the heart of contemporary capitalism, this study consequently seeks to situate the lay investors’ struggles in dealing with the ambiguous future within the broader transformation of the human condition during the triumphant rise of financial capitalism.

The Ecological Economics of Economic Democracy

Ecological economics is at a sharp crossroads today, mostly due to the unprecedented scale of the intertwined social and ecological crises we face. We argue that the discipline should engage with the thinking and practices around alternatives to capitalism more substantially, as this is essential and invaluable for the discipline's ability to contribute to a just and sustainable future. We outline an agenda for future ecological economics research on economic alternatives that are shaped by the concrete ways in which economic democracy deals with issues of uncertainty, complexity and value incommensurability, and contribute to a kind of political economy that ecological economics would advocate. We lay out how this question could be operationalised within the context of allocation and exchange (i.e. alternatives to market), production and investment (i.e. alternatives to capitalist firm) and economic subjectivities (i.e. alternatives to self-interest).

Lucrative Disaster: Financialization, Accumulation and Postearthquake Reconstruction in Nepal

abstractThis article investigates long-term processes of financialization unfolding in the aftermath of the 2015 earthquakes in Nepal, engaging with literatures on financialization and political economy of disaster and development. The article probes the evolving financialized social relations in Nepal in the context of humanitarian relief and reconstruction, paying particular attention to processes through which wide-scale political economies enter into the daily lives of disaster victims and play key roles in transforming their economic practice and subjectivity. In the name of relief and reconstruction, foreign investment combined with urban surplus capital has circulated within Nepal as finance in rural, earthquake-affected areas—making the earthquakes a truly lucrative disaster. The article deploys a conjunctural approach to understanding disaster financialization as a multiscalar process constituted through geoeconomic logics, state–market complexes, and economic subjectivity. Each of these dimensions of disaster financialization is elaborated in separate sections of the article. We conclude by cautioning against both celebrations and outright rejections of finance as a viable and desirable modality for disaster reconstruction—calling instead for a more nuanced understanding of disaster financialization and its implications for affected populations.

Beyond Jobs vs Environment: On the Potential of Universal Basic Income to Reconfigure Environmental Politics

AbstractThe tension between creating jobs and protecting the environment remains central to contemporary environmental politics. Critical scholars have reworked the “jobs vs the environment” problematique, but how people will secure livelihoods in various imagined futures remains unclear. We demonstrate how a Universal Basic Income (UBI) that enacts a revitalised politics of redistribution, in conjunction with an active state, has the potential to rupture the link between employment and income. We suggest that such a UBI is complementary to various postcapitalist politics that fundamentally reorganise relationships between people, ecology, and labour. Further, such a UBI can enable the cultivation of new economic subjectivities, as well as the time needed for greater democratic engagement. Where radical environmental politics often configure a fearful agent of change, motivated by a dystopian imaginaries, we propose new radical visions for socioecological futures in which people have time for leisure, community, and democratic participation.

Well Enough to Work? Social Enterprise Employment and the Geographies of Mental Health Recovery

This article examines the significance of paid work and workplaces for people living with mental ill health. Employment and workplaces have been largely absent in the mental health geography literature in part because of the persistent problems that people with mental ill health face in finding and retaining paid work; yet paid work and questions of productivity remain central to the very meaning of mental illness in capitalist society. To address this gap, we report on research involving social enterprises in Canada that reduce barriers to participation in paid work. Through the provision of accommodations and supports, these enterprise sites challenge the disabling division of labor characteristic of mainstream workplaces. In so doing, they provide a context in which people, understanding themselves as “well enough to work,” can enact new forms of economic subjectivity. The meaning of paid work in these alternative sites remains defined in relation to the norms of the capitalist economy, however. Thinking beyond these narrowly defined conceptions of wellness and productivity offers an important avenue for future mental health geographies.

“Commercial Battles of Self-Support”: Concrete Construction and the Disabled World War I Veteran

As the First World War drew to a close, its demobilization— or the redistribution of labor in the war’s aftermath— became a pressing question across industries in the United States, including the field of reinforced concrete construction. This essay explores an emerging conceptualization of disability in these years as it informed how other forms of work might be understood. A provocation by Albert Kahn (on the possibility of incorporating injured soldiers into the production of reinforced concrete) and the research of Frank and Lillian Gilbreth (on concrete and on the retraining of disabled soldiers and workers) offer starting points in understanding a new economic subjectivity that was entailed in the work of industrial building.