Repatriating Polanyi

Repatriating Polanyi PDF Author: Chris Hann
Publisher: Central European University Press
ISBN: 9633862884
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
Karl Polanyi’s “substantivist” critique of market society has found new popularity in the era of neoliberal globalization. The author reclaims this polymath for contemporary anthropology, especially economic anthropology, in the context of Central Europe, where Polanyi (1886–1964) grew up. The Polanyian approach illuminates both the communist era, in particular the “market socialist” economy which evolved under János Kádár in Hungary, as well as the post-communist transformations of property relations, civil society and ethno-national identities throughout the region. Hann’s analyses are based primarily on his own ethnographic investigations in Hungary and South-East Poland. They are pertinent to the rise of neo-nationalism in those countries, which is theorized as a malign countermovement to the domination of the market. At another level, Hann’s adaptation of Polanyi’s social philosophy points beyond current political turbulence to an original concept of “social Eurasia”.

Repatriating Polanyi

Repatriating Polanyi PDF Author: Chris Hann
Publisher: Central European University Press
ISBN: 9633862884
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 388

Get Book Here

Book Description
Karl Polanyi’s “substantivist” critique of market society has found new popularity in the era of neoliberal globalization. The author reclaims this polymath for contemporary anthropology, especially economic anthropology, in the context of Central Europe, where Polanyi (1886–1964) grew up. The Polanyian approach illuminates both the communist era, in particular the “market socialist” economy which evolved under János Kádár in Hungary, as well as the post-communist transformations of property relations, civil society and ethno-national identities throughout the region. Hann’s analyses are based primarily on his own ethnographic investigations in Hungary and South-East Poland. They are pertinent to the rise of neo-nationalism in those countries, which is theorized as a malign countermovement to the domination of the market. At another level, Hann’s adaptation of Polanyi’s social philosophy points beyond current political turbulence to an original concept of “social Eurasia”.

Ernest Gellner’s Legacy and Social Theory Today

Ernest Gellner’s Legacy and Social Theory Today PDF Author: Petr Skalník
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 303106805X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 604

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Book Description
This edited volume examines the critical issues of the 21st century through the prism of Ernest Gellner’s work. The contributors look critically at Gellner ́s legacy, questioning whether he remains an inspiration for today’s social theorists. Chapters proactively probe Gellner’s thoughts on a variety of pressing topics—modernity, postcolonialsm, nationalism, and more—without losing sight of current debates on these issues. This volume further brings these debates to life by having each chapter followed by a comment by an academic peer of the chapter author, thus transforming the text into a lively and dynamic conversation.

Explorations in Economic Anthropology

Explorations in Economic Anthropology PDF Author: Deema Kaneff
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 180073140X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
At a time of rising global economic precarity and social inequality, the field of economic anthropology offers solutions through the study of local and contextualized economic practices. This book is made up of an exciting collection of succinct essays authored by leading scholars primarily from the field of economic anthropology, but also featuring contributions from sociology and history. The chapters engage with debates at the cutting edge of research on the topics of Eurasia, the anthropology of postsocialism and the embeddedness of economic practices.

Public Policy in Transition Economies

Public Policy in Transition Economies PDF Author: Maciej J. Grodzicki
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040048722
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
Public policies are usually carefully designed to address a particular problem, but they are also shaped and influenced by the sociocultural heritage of a particular country. This volume explores the origins of economic and other public policies in Central and Eastern Europe. This region makes for a particularly interesting case because after going through a major system change – transitioning from a command economy into a market economy – many of the key policies were written anew. The contributors to this book look at key policy areas at the intersection of state and private sectors, including industrial, pension, energy, and competition policies. The chapters examine key questions such as: how did these policies evolve from the time of transition to their final form? What were the main drivers of policy conduct and factors influencing major policy choices? How does the historical context impact contemporary policy space? Throughout the volume, an institutional approach is adopted, according to which policies are perceived as the outcome of top‐down design, filtered through social institutions inherited from the past. With this approach, this book presents a long‐running assessment, over 30 years, of policymaking in transition economies, which were subject to profound changes throughout the period. This book will be of interest to readers in institutional economics, policy studies, transition economies, and the recent history of Eastern Europe.

Work, Society, and the Ethical Self

Work, Society, and the Ethical Self PDF Author: Chris Hann
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1800732260
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Primarily on the basis of ethnographic case-studies from around the world, this volume links investigations of work to questions of personal and professional identity and social relations. In the era of digitalized neoliberalism, particular attention is paid to notions of freedom, both collective (in social relations) and individual (in subjective experiences). These cannot be investigated separately. Rather than juxtapose economy with ethics (or the profitable with the good), the authors uncover complex entanglements between the drudgery experienced by most people in the course of making a living and ideals of emancipated personhood.

Kari Polanyi Levitt and Canadian Political Economy

Kari Polanyi Levitt and Canadian Political Economy PDF Author: Michèle Rioux
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030873641
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 82

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Book Description
This book acts as a tribute to the legacy of the Canadian political economist Kari Polanyi Levitt, daughter of Karl Polanyi, one of the great economists of the 20th century. Polanyi Levitt’s life and work were devoted to understanding the scientific and political challenges that humanity faces and the incredible impacts of development, trade, and globalization in their diverse manifestations, including in the context of the current COVID-19 pandemic. This book reflects on Polanyi Levitt’s conviction that the solution to contemporary challenges lies not in the development of sophisticated technologies, but in questioning how we want to live with each other and working to re-embed the economy in the wider social system. Ultimately, the book contends that Polanyi Levitt’s message is simple: humanity must rethink the way we live in this world our place in the universe, and our relationship with nature. Drawing on a 10-year research project encompassing interviews and literature review, this short volume introduces and celebrates Kari Polanyi Levitt's legacy and invites political economists to engage with her work.

Anthropology of Transformation

Anthropology of Transformation PDF Author: Juraj Buzalka
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
ISBN: 1800643659
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
This collection of essays is the result of the joint efforts of colleagues and students of the leading social anthropology and post-socialism theorist, Professor Chris Hann. With the thirtieth anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 2019 as their catalyst, the authors reflect upon Chris Hann’s lifelong fieldwork in the discipline, spanning regions as diverse as East Central Europe, Turkey, and the Chinese north-west. The collapse of the Berlin Wall naturally triggered a plethora of analysis and scholarly research. Sociocultural anthropology, with its focus on ethnographic study and on the gradual evolution of social relations, sharply contrasted with the emphasis on dramatic rupture brought about by the 1989 transition. Continuing in this tradition, this volume, through micro-level analysis of societal transformation from the post-war years to the present day, provides an alternative perspective to the neoliberalist views often encountered in the scholarship on political and economic modernisation. The more nuanced analysis of social transformations proposed here is a particularly useful tool in the investigation of contemporary issues such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the refugee ‘crisis’, and the rise of right-wing populism in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. Anthropology of Transformation will be of interest to researchers in the fields of socio-cultural anthropology, religion and economics. Moreover, the book’s discussion of issues widely discussed beyond the field of academia such as neoliberalism and the welfare state, and populist and exclusionary politics, will appeal to non-specialist readers.

The Migration Turn and Eastern Europe

The Migration Turn and Eastern Europe PDF Author: Attila Melegh
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031142942
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 454

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Book Description
Using Marxist and Polanyian frameworks, this book examines the structural and discursive transformation that can explain the polarization of migration debates and within the rise of nationalist anti-migrant discourses in Europe with a special attention to Eastern Europe and Hungary. It goes beyond the mainstream explanations of these phenomena that uses nationalist propaganda as causal factors and instead argues that the rise of anti-immigration currents cannot be understood without a dialectical and historical analysis of the material and discursive transformations, most importantly marketization and related reification. Drawing from thinkers such as Lukács, Polanyi, and Gramsci as well as diverse empirical sources including demographic studies, historical modelling, and discourse analyses, Migration Turn and Eastern Europe is a unique and rigorous study of one of the most pressing and puzzling political and sociological questions of our time.

Politics and the Environment in Eastern Europe

Politics and the Environment in Eastern Europe PDF Author: Eszter Krasznai Kovacs
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
ISBN: 1800641354
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
Europe remains divided between east and west, with differences caused and worsened by uneven economic and political development. Amid these divisions, the environment has become a key battleground. The condition and sustainability of environmental resources are interlinked with systems of governance and power, from local to EU levels. Key challenges in the eastern European region today include increasingly authoritarian forms of government that threaten the operations and very existence of civil society groups; the importation of locally-contested conservation and environmental programmes that were designed elsewhere; and a resurgence in cultural nationalism that prescribes and normalises exclusionary nation-building myths. This volume draws together essays by early-career academic researchers from across eastern Europe. Engaging with the critical tools of political ecology, its contributors provide a hitherto overlooked perspective on the current fate and reception of ‘environmentalism’ in the region. It asks how emergent forms of environmentalism have been received, how these movements and perspectives have redefined landscapes, and what the subtler effects of new regulatory regimes on communities and environment-dependent livelihoods have been. Arranged in three sections, with case studies from Czechia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Serbia, this collection develops anthropological views on the processes and consequences of the politicisation of the environment. It is valuable reading for human geographers, social and cultural historians, political ecologists, social movement and government scholars, political scientists, and specialists on Europe and European Union politics.

State Socialism in Eastern Europe

State Socialism in Eastern Europe PDF Author: Eszter Bartha
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 303122504X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
This volume brings together a diverse set of scholars to address the long theoretical, conceptual and political debate on the interpretation of “actually existing” socialism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. While the major paradigms – totalitarianism, neo-totalitarianism, revisionism, post-revisionism, modernization, and the world-system analysis – are well known in the Western (English-language) literature, the concept of state socialism, which has strong theoretical roots in Hungary (going back to the works of György Lukács and István Mészáros) received less international attention. This book contributes to a productive discussion about viable alternatives to capitalism by introducing and theoretically elaborating on the concept and practice of state socialism, highlighting the historical significance of Hungary’s experiment with the “new economic mechanism” of 1968. It generates a common point of reference for various generations of anti-systemic thinkers, scholars, and activists to move beyond Cold War simplifications and ideological divides, and contributes to the discussion about anti-capitalist alternatives, which are relevant today for the global left. The chapter “Dance Around a ‘Sacred Cow’: Women’s Night Work and the Gender Politics of the Mass Worker in State-Socialist Hungary and Internationally” is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivatives 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.