Informal Markets and Trade in Central Asia and the Caucasus

Project Manager: Dr. des. Susanne Fehlings

The research topic is the informal trading routes in post-Soviet Eurasia that have been established and used by individuals who have no direct link to the great axes of the global exchange of goods. These individuals, who are often described as petty traders, are participating in a kind of globalization that can be termed “globalization from below”. Following in the footsteps of Portes (1997), Appadurai (2000), and Mathews, Ribeiro and Alba Vega (2012), I distinguish between “globalization from above” and a so-called “globalization from below” or “grassroots globalization”. According to my definition, “globalization from above” is regulated by official and formal institutions such as nation states, international financial institutions, and trading companies. “Globalization from below”, on the other hand, belongs to an informal, sometimes even semi-legal or illegal sphere. The social actors in this kind of globalization are private petty traders who only have a small amount of money at their disposal and rely mostly on social networks including their kin and ethnic group.

Further Information here.