Economization and Beyond: (Re)composing Livelihoods in Maine, USA

Ethan Miller

This paper draws on interviews with economic development professionals in Maine (USA) to pursue two tasks: first, to explore the potentials and limits of Calsikan and Callon's notion of "economization" as the tracing of how "the economic" is produced as a material-semiotic construction; and second, to propose an approach that refuses the assumption that the composition of collective provisioning will (or should) take the ultimate form of an "economy." Development processes and struggles can also be read in terms of the "composition of livelihoods," beckoning toward a transversal politics that might open up possibilities for unexpected alliances and alternative regional development pathways.

Suggested citation

Miller, E. 2014. "Economization and Beyond: (Re)composing Livelihoods in Maine, USA." Environment and Planning A 46(11): 2735–2751.