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Social Exclusion, Spaces of Household Economic Practice and Post-Socialism

A research project funded by the U.K. Economic and Social Research Council

The Research Issues

The challenges of social inclusion facing the countries of East Central Europe (ECE) as they further marketise their economies and become members of the European Union are considerable. From a situation of relative social equality, the countries of ECE have seen inequality grow to be comparable with countries in Western Europe. While it is clear that the EU enlargement process recognises some of the challenges faced, it is also clear that there are a number of significant gaps in our understanding. Through a comparative analysis of two urban communities, in Slovakia and Poland, undergoing different national and local transformations, this project aims to understand the types of coping strategies adopted, how such strategies are constituted within different geographical contexts and the role played by ‘community economies’ - the full range of informal and semi-formal economic activity - in the management of poverty and social exclusion.

Building on earlier research by Adrian Smith and Alison Stenning – which highlighted the need for a common, comparative approach to understanding the strategies adopted to cope with social exclusion under different national and local circumstances – this project extends existing work on household and community practices for managing increasing austerity and social exclusion. The project focuses on interrogating the strategic role of households in such practices, on identifying the ‘geographies of practice’ at scales from the household to the city and beyond, and on understanding the articulation of different formal and informal economic practices. Conceptually, this research builds on a body of work which highlights the ways in which the emergent economies of post-socialism must be situated in an understanding of the plurality of economic spaces and practices, connecting to similar work in the West in a different geographical context and through different units of analysis - in this case, the household and the community.

The project aims to produce policy-relevant research results, sensitive to the diversity of the geographical contexts and scales in which households and individuals are situated, to inform discussions of social policy within the context of EU enlargement and contribute to theoretical debates concerning how we understand the emergent economies of post-socialism.

Research Questions
The research focuses on four main questions:

1. What is the extent of social exclusion in the urban areas of PetrZalka and Nowa Huta?
2. How and why do households and individuals cope with these forms of social exclusion through the use of informal economic activities?
3. In what ways do these informal practices articulate with the formal economy?
4. At what geographical scale are these practices constructed?