From Monetary Theory of Production to Culture-Nature Life Process: Feminist-Institutional Elaborations of Social Provisioning

Abstract

The article seeks to contribute to the literature on social provisioning as an organizing concept in heterodox economics. Particularly, the article details social provisioning as an amalgamation of processes and as a part of a system of culture-nature life process. First, the article delineates a categorization of social provisioning activities with respect to motivation in their organizationmonetary and non-monetary, emphasizing the differences, as well as links between those. Second, the article discusses valuation of social activities, applying institutional theory. Third, the concept of a social process is delineated. It is argued that the concept captures agency and structure without reducing one to the other, and allows for theorizing open-endedness of social provisioning. The fourth section offers a categorization of processes and briefly explains each one of those, conceptualizing social provisioning within a historical culture-nature life process. Finally, the article concludes.