"You Can Buy Almost Anything with Potatoes": An Examination of Barter during Economic Crisis in Bulgaria

Cellarius, Barbara A.

doi:10.2307/3773796

Cited by 33 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 13 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Domestic needs are also met through widespread direct exploitation of local forests, as is shown by household survey data (Figure 2). 6 Razlog is not at all unique in this regard: Creed (1998) and Cellarius (2000 2004) describe subsistence and commercial exploitation of wild plants and animals in other parts of Bulgaria and other scholars point to similar activities elsewhere in the post state‐socialist world (see also the essays in Bridger and Pine 1998 and Turnock and Staddon 2001).…”

Section: Forests and Household Subsistence Since 1989mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Porcini or Chanterelles), the sale of which is much more visible inasmuch as middlemen buyers visit the villages on a periodic schedule to set up temporary buying stations (Plate 1). Cellarius (2000) observes that even then the taxes involved are so low that they appear to exercise neither a revenue generation nor a conservation function – another reason perhaps for the recent declines in quality and yields. For the most part, however, local residents collect forest products for their own use, the relative contribution of which is hard to assess precisely.…”

Section: Forests and Household Subsistence Since 1989mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Towards a critical political ecology of human–forest interactions: collecting herbs and mushrooms in a Bulgarian locality

Staddon¹

2009

Trans Inst British Geog

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper presents a critical political ecology of human-forest interactions in a Bulgarian locality. Based on primary fieldwork carried out annually since 1992, the argument is advanced that even in a relatively small space, environment-society relationships are sufficiently complex to make the enterprises of empirical analysis and theory-building quite challenging. Yet, as this case study of informal resource use practices shows, it is precisely because environment-society relationships are so intertwined that a 'symmetrical' treatment of humans and non-human actors is required; one that takes us well beyond the traditional political ecology of Blaikie or Black, but which, I shall argue, does not escape it entirely. Through a detailed ethnographic account of herb and mushroom collecting I develop the idea of 'symmetry' in three distinct ways. First I will explore the by now well-publicised notion that non-humans can be actors too. Second this basic insight will be developed via the more advanced conceptualisation of entities such as Thrift's 'effloresences' or expressions of 'distributed' information spaces and applied to the case study of herb and mushroom collection in a southwestern Bulgarian locality. Finally I consider the theoretical and practical policy implications of this analysis for all concerned, but most particularly those who claim to 'manage' and 'regulate' human-forest interactions. key words Bulgaria forest resources postsocialism locality critical political ecology actor network theory

show abstract

Section: Forests and Household Subsistence Since 1989mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Forests and Household Subsistence Since 1989mentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards a critical political ecology of human–forest interactions: collecting herbs and mushrooms in a Bulgarian locality

Staddon¹

2009

Trans Inst British Geog

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Parry and Bloch 1989). A second set of researchers has focused on the proliferation of barter arrangements in the Russian economy (e.g., Humphrey 2002:5 -20; see also Cellarius 2000), in some cases engaging in productive discussions with economists also attempting to come to grips with post-Soviet demonetization (above all, Seabright 2000). A third cluster of scholars has concentrated on nonmonetary transactions in ethnographies of bribes, gifts, and informal connections accruing around access to goods and services (Caldwell 2004;Ledeneva 1998;Patico 2002;Rivkin-Fish in press).…”

Section: Multiple Currencies and The Politics Of Liquiditymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Dunn's analyses of informal connections, gift economies, and Polish znajomości networks are firmly situated in her exploration of post-Fordist relations in production on the shop floor. Barbara Cellarius (2000) and Carole Nagengast (1991), also working in Eastern Europe, rather than the former Soviet Union, discuss a range of rural exchanges that include labor power. See Comaroff andComaroff 1992 andHutchinson 1996 for slightly different takes on commodities, money, and political economic transformation than the one I adopt here.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Moonshine, money, and the politics of liquidity in rural Russia

Rogers

2005

American Ethnologist

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In many areas of rural Russia after socialism, moonshine serves as a local currency. In this article, I trace the intersecting circuits of moonshine, rubles, labor, and U.S. dollars in a Russian town to outline an approach to exchange that concentrates on the politics of liquidity—conflicts and inequalities rooted in the relative degrees of exchangeability associated with different transactables. I explore emerging axes of stratification after socialism at several junctures: between husbands and wives; among units of extended families; between moonlighters and their employers; and, through an analysis of ruble–dollar exchanges and Russia's “August crisis” of 1998, between rural households and international currency speculators.

show abstract

“…All of this is occurring in a context in which Bulgaria's difficult economic situation, especially in rural areas, makes people particularly concerned about economic development opportunities (Cellarius, 2000;Staddon, 1999;Wyzan 1998). The relationships between parks and people, in the context of profound and painful socioeconomic transformation, are the subject of this paper.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Paradoxes of conservation and development in postsocialist Bulgaria: recent controversies

Staddon

Cellarius

2002

Eur. Env.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Based on extensive primary research in the 1990s a number of contemporary Bulgarian environmental controversies are examined, which highlight some of the paradoxes of sustainable development in a postsocialist context. Water sector controversies such as the Djerman‐Skakavitsa diversion project forest and national park and other protected area management controversies in the Rila and Pirin National Parks and the Rhodope mountains are sketched. Extension and creation of new protected areas presents both challenges and opportunities to local residents and conservation agencies alike but creative solutions are at least being considered within a framework of sustainable regional development. It is found that dependence on natural resource hinterlands for commodity and non‐commodity uses provides for new, complex and contested regulation between stakeholders and the postsocialist state at a variety of scales from the local to the global, with nested though mutable, scale‐dependent relations. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment.

show abstract

"You Can Buy Almost Anything with Potatoes": An Examination of Barter during Economic Crisis in Bulgaria

Cited by 33 publications

References 13 publications

Towards a critical political ecology of human–forest interactions: collecting herbs and mushrooms in a Bulgarian locality

Towards a critical political ecology of human–forest interactions: collecting herbs and mushrooms in a Bulgarian locality

Moonshine, money, and the politics of liquidity in rural Russia

Paradoxes of conservation and development in postsocialist Bulgaria: recent controversies

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About