Informal Trade, Gender and the Border Experience

From Political Borders to Social Boundaries
1. Auflage 2018
ISBN: 978-1-138-54689-9
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 220 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 454 g

Reihe: Border Regions Series

Detailing the history of a well-known phenomenon of post-socialism - cross-border petty trade and smuggling - as the history of a practice in daily life from a gendered perspective, this book considers how changes in these practices in a particular border region, between Belarus and Lithuania, have been accompanied, and to some extent provoked, by changes in the border regime. It looks at how the selective openness of the Belarus-Lithuania border worked during different periods over the last twenty years and how it influenced the involvement of different social groups in shuttle trade practices. Foremost, this book considers how political borders implement and/or intensify social boundaries and suggests that the selective openness of political borders, a prerequisite for the existence of female shuttle trade activities, is primarily built upon people’s social characteristics. However, it claims that what can be seen as the grounds for growing inequality at a global level, at a local one may have an important resourceful meaning for various social groups including those usually perceived as disadvantaged, such as widowed female retirees or unemployed single women with children.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Sasunkevich, Olga

Fachgebiete

• Geowissenschaften Geographie | Raumplanung Humangeographie
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Soziologie von Migranten und Minderheiten
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde Minderheiten, Interkulturelle & Multikulturelle Fragen

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Contents: Introduction; Shuttle trade in Asmjany: contextualizing oral history research; Shuttle trade and borders in Asmjany before the disintegration of the USSR; The emergence of national borders, the flourishing of trade: shuttle trade in Asmjany in the early 1990s; Maturation of the border, professionalization of shuttle trade (1994-2007); Persistence of the border, disappearance of trade? Shuttle trade in Asmjany after Schengen (2007-2011); Shuttle trade and gender relations: a female world in a provincial border town; Conclusion; Appendix; Bibliography; Index.

Über Autor(innen)

Olga Sasunkevich is a lecturer at the Department of Media and executive co-director of the Center for Gender Studies at the European Humanities University, Vilnius, Lithuania.