Paper short abstract:

In East Berlin, projects promoting non-market exchange and the provisioning of free resources aim at generating informal reciprocity practices. This results in a coexistence of distinct circulation patterns, such as gift-giving without obligation, and exchange leading to reciprocity-like relations.

Paper long abstract:

This paper is based on an ethnography of 'heterodox' consumption in the inner city of the former East Berlin. Practices based on non-market exchange (tauschen) and on the provisioning of free goods and services (schenken) have been examined in the context of a withdrawing social State and of a spreading market economy. Most of these experiences are related to social, political or environmental consciousness and activism, and are known as 'alternative projects'. Among other claims, they criticize the commoditization of social relations and the ubiquity of money promoted by capitalism.

Regardless of their various degrees of institutionalisation and of the different strategies adopted, most of the projects aim at giving rise to reciprocity practices which, in turn, are expected to grow increasingly informal, as social networks are created and strengthened.

Nevertheless, these initiatives succeed differently in generating reciprocity. On the one hand, while 'schenken' projects -such as Umsonstläden, "free shops"- explicitly aim at the creation of a generalised reciprocity sphere, they fail to produce community binding, mutual obligation and a shared morality. On the other hand, 'tauschen' projects based on exchange -such as Tauschringe, non-monetary exchange networks-, and thus on the equal value of the transacted goods and services, potentially induce disinterested gift-giving practices as a result of frequent transactions bringing participants socially closer. Participants attaining such closeness eventually avoid the formal structure of the exchanges imposed by the network.

The ethnographic material I present accounts for 'heterodox' attitudes towards market consumption giving rise to a coexistence of different circulation patterns such as gift-giving practices without moral obligation or community bonds, and balanced exchanges leading to informal, reciprocity-like relations.