COST Action IS0803 Workgroups 2010
WS2: Money
Trusting the Neighbours: Debt, Credit, Coupons and Gifts across Borders
Second Workshop 2 meeting
Riga (Latvia)
5-6 November 2010
Convenors:
Irina Novikova
iranovi@lanet.lv
+371 28330662
Description:
In 2009, WS2 focused on theories of money and the diverse and changing ways that money travels across borders, both legally and illegally, especially around the eastern peripheries of Europe. It considered how those transfers and exchanges play a part in redefining the borders that they cross, particularly the material inequalities involved, and the reshaping of relations, and separations, between regions.
In 2010, WS2 will focus on forms of exchange and payment across borders that do not directly involve currency, but instead debt, credit, coupons and/or gifts. Some of these could be seen as forms of money, or alternatives to money: many types of coupons are used both by businesses and other groups and organizations instead of money; and credit cards, or being given credit by a shop or bank, are also used in many of the same contexts in which currency is used. In contrast, debt and gifts involve different, and some would argue more intense, forms of relations between
people and organizations than those normally associated with the currency-type exchanges made using coupons and credit.
Given that all of these forms of exchange require some form of trust, either in relationships or in the ability to enforce laws or contracts, the key focus of this workshop will be how everyday cross-border relations involving debt, credit, coupons and/or gifts might be undergoing change, and how that might be contributing towards reshaping the borders on the eastern peripheries of Europe. Topics could include differential access to credit cards in different regions; acts of philanthropy across borders; the ways debt generates diverse forms of dependence and cross-border
connections as well as separations, both enabling and preventing people from moving; historical or contemporary cases where money has almost ceased to be used; and the use of novel forms of payment on the internet or via mobile telephones. We invite contributions on any topic, either conceptual and/or based on empirical research, relating to the way debt, credit, coupons (meaning any type of payment that is not currency) and gifts become involved in cross-border relations.
Participant: Dimitrios Dalakoglou
Department of Anthropology
University of Sussex
United Kingdom
Email: purityanddanger@gmail.com
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
Beyond Currency: Cross Border Building as Gift
Since the opening of Albanian borders (1990) two massive and parallel building projects are taking place in the country, the first one is the construction of infrastructures and the other one is the construction of new accommodations. Both projects are wrapped in two different frameworks of gift relationships. The infrastructures are constructed almost exclusively with international aid while the houses are being built thanks to the resources of Albanian migrants inflowing from abroad. These resources inflow in Albania not only in the form of currency but especially in the form of building materials or labour in the newly constructed houses where relatives of the migrants live. This paper examines the construction and the 'inflowing materiality' of a major cross-border highway which was built as gift to Albania by EU and Greek state and two migrants' houses which inflow in Albania 'piece after piece' via this highway. Examining the materiality of the two built entities, the paper suggests a new understanding of the complexity and multiplicity of uneven international relationships and their challenging through everyday life practices.
Participant: Rozita Dimova
Institute for Eastern European Studies
Free University Berlin (Freie Universität Berlin)
Germany
Email: rozita@zedat.fu-berlin.de
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
Beyond Money: Ethnography of the border hotel/casino complex in southern Macedonia
My paper will outline the on-going research on the borders between the Republic of Macedonia and Greece by discussing the rise of the entertainment industry in Bitola and Gevgelija, two towns in the southern part of the republic of Macedonia that have become popular destinations for Greeks living in the border area. I will examine the circulation of non-monetary forms of payment in the several large hotels/casinos in obtaining different types of services (e.g. beauty/cosmetic, escort or gastronomic) that are offered as part of the entertainment complex. My presentation will be based on interviews with the casino/hotel employees and customers from both sides of the border. In addition to focusing on the non-monetary forms of paying, I will also investigate if these methods of payment involve the notion of trust and if they are informed by notions of national loyalty, class and social hierarchy. How do people with different social backgrounds reconcile and
conceptualize the nationalistic claims between the two countries related to the dispute of the name “Macedonia”? How does state nationalism become internalized and incorporated by people of different social classes frequenting the hotel/casino? Is there a distinction between different “types” of nationalism as experienced by consumers in the hotels/casinos and the employees who offer their services?
Participant: Sarah Green
Social Anthropology, School of Social Sciences
University of Manchester
United Kingdom
Email: sarah.green@manchester.ac.uk
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
Trading Credit: negotiating debt, gifts and credit in the Aegean
After decades of difficult political, social and economic relations between the Turkish and Greek sides of the Aegean, there have been moves towards improving relations in recent years, particularly in terms of trade. This has not been without its tensions, but trading relations between the two sides have steadily increased over the last 10-15 years, to the extent that some types of trade have become regular and routine. This paper will focus on the way different habits in relation to debt, gifts and credit in relation to trade are being negotiated by those who cross the Aegean. This includes a consideration of how wider changes in finance and credit – such as the rapid increase in the availability of credit cards, and the radical removal of financial constraints on the movement of cash across national borders – have been differently experienced on the two sides. The paper argues that a study of everyday experiences of, and attitudes towards, debt, gifts and credit in cross-border trading relations can provide a different vantage point from which to understand the how borders both shape,
and are shaped by, different types of credit relations.
Participant: Robin Harper
Behavioral Sciences Department
York College, New York
USA
Email: robinharper@verizon.net
Participant: Renata Jambresic-Kirin
Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research
Croatia
Email: renata@ief.hr
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
My contribution to the topic of alternative forms of exchange requiring trust and ethical positioning will focus on the feminist critique of the rhetoric of “capitalism's temporary difficulties”. The guiding principle of this critique is the belief that only cross-gender, cross-race and cross-class solidarity, supported by the transnational feminism, can bring us closer to the ideal of human sustainability and social justice. My intention is to present some conceptual discourses on the issues by macrohistorian Riane Eisler and the feminist theoretician of gift economy Genevieve Vaughan.
Participant: Damir Josipovic
Director, Institute for Ethnic Studies
Slovenia
Email: damir.josipovic@guest.arnes.si
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
Gifts for policeman: a smuggling inventiveness of small cross-border community in northeastern Slovenia
I would like to discuss some basic ideas about the ways a small ethnic and cross-border community cope with peripheral position along the border in seeking better life.
Participant: James Korovilas
Bristol Business School
University of West England
United Kingdom
Email: James.korovilas@uwe.ac.uk
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
The medium term economic effects of remittances on the recipient economy: Evidence from Kosovo and Albania.
A number of countries on the periphery of the European Union have become dependent upon the receipt of remittances, with these remittances mainly sent by family members working in the European Union. The western Balkan region contains a number of such 'remittance dependent' economies, for example, Kosovo, Albania, Bosnia, Macedonia and Serbia. This paper examines the various consequences of remittances on the recipient economy and considers the extent
to which particular remittance receiving countries have experienced a distorted pattern of economic development, resulting in them becoming dependent on the receipt of remittances, and therefore dependent upon further outward migration in order to sustain this flow of remittances. This paper aims to identify a possible 'Dutch Disease' effect from the receipt of remittances in the economies of Kosovo and Albania. The 'Dutch Disease' occurs when an inflow of money results in a distortion in the relative price of traded and non traded goods within the domestic economy. This results in a reallocation of resources away from the production of traded goods and towards the production of non-traded goods. With less production of traded goods the remittance receiving economy becomes more dependent upon imported goods and therefore more dependent upon the flow of remittances needed to maintain this level of consumption.
Participant: Zaira Tiziana Lofranco
Department of Social Sciences
University of Naples “L’Orientale”
Italy
Email: zaira.lofranco@gmail.com
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
Refurnishing the house after displacement: credits and models of consumptions in post war Sarajevo
Being given credit from a bank or from a shop (di•i kredit) has become very popular among Sarajevans who had to refurnish the house after having crossed the borders during displacement. The aim of this paper is to analyze the demand for credit and the model of consumption it support, which are not always rational from an economical point of view (no warrants, not enough high income to pay the mortgages, credit not used to buy basic goods but expensive useless fashion goods), as an effect of being culturally displaced trough rapidly changing political and economic systems (socialist system, humanitarian system, capitalist system) and consequently shifting levels of income, model of consumptions and standards of living which blurred the distinctions between category of goods (basic and not), needs and wishes and different
strategy of getting them. The paper will also discuss if the demand for credit can be intended as a socio-cultural relocation in a space where the western model of consumption is still hegemonic and inaccessible even if much more tangible than in
the socialist period.
Participant: Irina Novikova
Center for Gender Studies; Dept of Culture and Literature
The University of Latvia (Riga)
Latvia
Email: iranovi@lanet.lv
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
Convenor WS2 2010
Participant: Nikolai Ssorin-Chaikov
Social Anthropology
University of Cambridge
United Kingdom
Email: ns267@cam.ac.uk
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
Gifts, “gifts of empire” and trade across early Soviet borders
This paper explores early Soviet transactions with the West — both trade transactions and the political ‘philanthropy’ such as the support of the Third International — which took form of gifts and barter as well as complex credit relations of Soviet government with the Western banks. In particular, I am interested in an ambiguous figure of the American entrepreneur Armand Hammer and his activities in this trade, which started from his personal gift to Lenin and which included various favours that he did for the Soviet government such as payments delivery for the Third International. This paper draws on empirical materials of my on-going research into gifts to Soviet leaders. My goal here is to contextualise these gifts, first, in a emergent landscape of Soviet-Western non-monetary transactions of the 1920s and 30s, and, second, in ideologies of such transactions as “gifts of empire” (Grant 2009)— “gifts” of civilisation and development, including state
socialism as a gift, to which personal gifts to Soviet leaders often were complex reciprocations.
Participant: Hani Zubida
Lauder School of Government
Diplomacy and Strategy Interdisciplinary Center (IDC)
Israel
Email: hzubida@idc.ac.il
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
MONEY: What’s it worth to temporary migrants in Israel?
In immigration, individuals are both absent and present: physically absent from their families, by sending money, migrants remain an integral part of that same family, thus creating what psychologist Pauline Boss terms “ambiguous loss.” For temporary migrants in an ethnically-bounded state, where citizenship is legally, socially and politically linked with ethnicity, like Israel, the problem is further exacerbated, as there is no opportunity for reconciliation with the receiving state, leaving migrants in their own ambiguous loss – stymied from joining the receiving state and yet separated from the sending state either. Familial dependence on remittances and servicing contract payments challenges migrants to remain in limbo. However, bread-winner status also brings opportunities for familial and personal role shifts and opportunities for decision making that never existed previously. Recognizing these paradoxes, what costs and value, beyond actual money, does
temporary migration in an ethnically- bounded state bring? Through intense interviews with temporary migrants in Israel, we propose to explore these value and cost questions: how temporary migration affects changes in familial status; changes in decision making opportunities and responsibilities; opportunity costs and benefits with respect to marriage and childbearing because of migration; and political and social incorporation as measures of worth.