| On Babushkas and Postcapitalism: Theorising Diverse Economies from the Global East As transformative visions for more just and sustainable societies multiply around the globe, the Diverse and Community Economies approach presents one of the most influential strategies to advance postcapitalist visions. In this paper, we contribute to this project based on our research and activism in the Global East, intended here as Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. We argue that engaging with the Global East is not only a matter of epistemic inclusivity but also a (too-often-neglected) opportunity to learn from a region with a history of dramatic economic transformation and diversity. We highlight examples of community economies already contributing to more-than-human wellbeing, and we present emerging theoretical insights concerning temporality, the multi-sitedness of the enterprise, and diverse economic subjectivities. With that, we articulate our ongoing research agenda and advance conversations with postcapitalist scholarship and politics. |
| Garden time and market time: Finding seasonality in diverse food economies This paper combines two fast-developing perspectives on food provision: diverse economies and temporality. Building on an in-depth study of urban gardening in Czechia, we show that non-market economies play a central role in household food practices and that their specific temporality shapes how other parts of a household’s diverse food economy are mobilised at certain times and for certain purposes. Following the diverse economies approach of reading for difference and not dominance, this paper investigates the interrelations and hierarchies among market, alternative market, and non-market food economies on the household level. We decentre the presumed dominance of market-based provisioning by showing that gardeners’ food behaviours are crucially shaped by their engagement with food self-provisioning (FSP), which creates particular understandings of food quality. What is more, the cyclical, natural time of gardening seasons determines the social rhythm of food provisioning in a contemporary urban context. This provides a counter-narrative to the dominant account about the dislodging of cyclical time embedded in natural processes by modern, accelerated time, with the former carrying a lower value than the latter. Finally, we engage with temporality on a discursive level as we counterpose our case of traditional FSP against the fascination with novelty permeating much of the search for alternative foodways. With this, we contribute to the debate on the temporality underpinning the ideas of capitalist modernity as well as post-capitalist prefiguration. |
| Degrowth from the East – between quietness and contention. Collaborative learnings from the Zagreb Degrowth Conference While degrowth as a plural and decolonial movement actively invites the Global South to be part of its transformative project, the current North-South dichotomy threatens to miss the variety of semi-peripheral contexts. Against this backdrop, we aim to contribute to dialogues on degrowth from the often-overlooked ‘East’ – specifically post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Instead of being viewed as a site for transformative examples and inspiration for degrowth-oriented socio-ecological transformation, CEE is often portrayed as ‘lagging behind’. Problematising such reductionist narratives, this essay explores CEE as a lively and rich site of postcapitalist alternatives. Based on two special sessions organised at the 2023 International Degrowth Conference in Zagreb, we ref lect upon insights gathered on various degrowth-aligned traditions and practices in CEE with a goal to 1) advance an equitable dialogue between the global degrowth scholarship and the East, and 2) strengthen a context-sensitive degrowth agenda in CEE. |
| The Role of Urban–Rural Connections in Building Food System Resilience This paper investigates food system resilience—conceptualized through the four dimensions of agency, buffering, connectivity, and diversification—from the perspective of rural–urban relations. We consider three cases that capture distinct actor and policy foci in the wider literature on urban–rural interactions. These are secondary cities and their development potential as central nodes in urban–rural food systems, the role of digital infrastructure in shaping food systems resilience, and finally, street food vendors as a particularly vulnerable yet crucial group of actors linking rural food supply with urban demand. We review existing literature within these themes, with a particular focus on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the food systems in middle- and low-income countries. This allows us to examine the relationship between rural–urban connectivity and food system resilience and to identify possible trade-offs. We formulate recommendations for research and policy around the notions of new localities (i.e., considering the interconnectedness of rural and urban food systems across administrative boundaries), smart development (i.e., context-specific approaches building on local strengths), and network governance (i.e., inclusive decision making engaging with diverse stakeholders across multiple scales). |
| The end of postsocialism (as we knew it): Diverse economies and the East This paper brings together two streams of literature which rarely enter into conversation: diverse economies scholarship and critical readings of postsocialism. Mobilising the cases of food self-provisioning (FSP) in Czechia and agricultural cooperatives in Kyrgyzstan as an empirical basis for our reflections, we pursue a two-fold aim. Firstly, we call for attention to the postsocialist East as fertile ground for the study of diverse economies. Secondly, we offer a postcapitalist reading of postsocialism as embedded and emancipated theorising, arguing that diverse economies thinking can support novel representations of this geopolitical area and open space to appreciate economic diversity on the ground. |
| Growing the Beautiful Anthropocene: Ethics of Care in East European Food Gardens This study contributes to research proposing the ethics of care framework as a way of imagining a food system that cares for Others. We expand this exploration to the everyday practice of home gardening and the related social relationships and material flows. This area complements current scholarship, which mostly focuses on food-related care as a form of activism driven by intentionality and knowledge about the effects of consumption choices. Combining a survey of a representative sample of the population and an in-depth qualitative study, our paper highlights the importance of inconspicuous but materially significant food self-provisioning and sharing practices as caring behaviors that do not rely on educational campaigns but draw on the desire to produce healthy food for human Others. Home grown food is distributed in the generalized reciprocity mode within wide food-sharing networks. The desire to produce healthy food further translates into the adoption of caring methods of cultivation that benefit non-human Others involved in the garden ecosystems. |
| Eco-social enterprises: ethical business in a post-socialist context This chapter focuses on alternative economies in a European post-socialist country, the Czech Republic, looking for transitions not towards, but beyond capitalism. After a brief historical excursion, the authors use the concept of eco-social enterprise and a five-dimensional, sliding-scale research framework to expand the EU social enterprise definition imported to post socialist-countries. The criteria include: 1. other-than-profit goals; 2. using profits to replenish nature and community; 3. democratic and localized governance and ownership; 4. rootedness in place and time; 5. non-market production, exchange and provisioning. Research has uncovered a heterogeneous group of entities including organic farms, community gardens, community cafés, a consumer cooperative, a municipally-owned shop, a community school, etc. Using brief illustrative case studies, the authors look at the varied traditions and diverse ideologies that shape and motivate current Czech eco-social enterprises. |
