Re-Assembling the Economy: Work, Life, and Value in Catalonia

Abstract

This dissertation is an ethnographic study of the creation of alternative economic projects in Catalonia that are presented as alternatives to capitalism and the state. It is based on 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork with two distinct yet related projects: an eco-network in a rural area in the North of Catalonia, and an organization based in Barcelona that I refer to as ‘the Cooperative’. The members of both the eco-network and Cooperative strived to create an alternative economic system at the “margins of capitalism” (al marge del capitalisme). To this end they mobilized various einas (tools) such as a social currency and an alternative employment system that were designed to make people less dependent on hegemonic political and economic institutions that were referred to as ‘the System’ (el sistema). In so doing, my interlocutors not only rethought the economy, but worked towards assembling the economy in a different way in practice. Through an ethnographic exploration of the Cooperative and the eco-network, this dissertation contributes to “rethinking the economy” (Mitchell 2008; Narotzky and Besnier 2014) and sheds light on the shifting relation between the state, society, and the economy in contemporary Southern – Europe.