Paper short abstract:

The paper examines how forms of economic thinking associated with domestic production create normative frameworks for the creation of social and material amongst lace makers in Slovakia. It highlights the tensions that exist between kin and community obligations, and the entrepreneurialism fostered by market participation.

Paper long abstract:

Tracing the production and trade of bobbin lace made in the provincial town of Banská Bystrica and in two nearby villages, Špania Dolina and Staré Hory, this paper examines the moral conundrums of lace making as small-scale entrepreneurial activity. Lace making arrived to this area with German, Bohemian and Croatian immigrants, particularly miners, in the 16th century. Despite having been produced as a commodity in the local area for centuries, fieldwork conducted in 2003-2004 showed that a stigma was attached to commercial activities and this stigma compelled lace makers to employ socially and geographically extended networks of kin and personal contacts in order to secure an income. Craftswomen had to negotiate between the workings of the market economy to which they were bound as producers and consumers, and the obligations of a moral economy to which they belong by virtue of kin and social relations. Examining domestic production in contemporary consumer society, this paper sheds light on the continuing importance of the household for the creation of social and material value. It examines how two forms of economic thinking and practice associated with domestic production - 'community economy' (Gudeman 1996) and 'house economy' (Gudeman and Rivera 1990) - have endured and adapted to the political and economic changes of the post-socialist period. These form normative frameworks for the creation of moral and social value and promoting ideals, practices and identities which at times are at odds with the entrepreneurialism fostered by market activities.