Artful Practices: The Political Economy of Everyday Life

Barbara Lenes is an Edmonton-based economist.

This collection of essays by 12 sociologists, political scientists, and
anthropologists attempts to define the social and political consequences
of changing world power relations, especially individual and
institutional, as the ideal of the welfare state declines. The authors
look to attempts among different informal communities to remain
autonomous, and to the concepts of citizenship, livelihood, and
interactions with the market that arise out of this. Of interest are
Gavin Smith’s attempt to develop a methodology of the informal
economy; Enzo Mingione’s look at the differences between north and
south Italy in adapting to social and economic change since World War
II; Ivan Laughlin’s first-hand accounts of land reform in Trinidad and
Tobago; and Menachem Rosher’s chronicling of pressures for change
within Kibbutzes since the mid-1980s. However, many of the authors
concern themselves with attempts to redefine citizenship from an
American perspective, and in a language that rings hollow in the face of
intractable wars and economic misery in other parts of the world.