Paper short abstract:

Deprived of recognition to various degrees, the Russian-speaking residents in the Baltics use their taxpayer identity to claim political membership. Taxation is often imagined as key to citizenship; yet in reality, paying taxes is rarely enough to become (full) members of the national collective.

Paper long abstract:

The Russian-speaking residents in the Baltics are deprived of recognition to various degrees; some of them are non-citizens and/or do not speak the official language, which then feeds into the perception of them as potentially alien and threatening minorities. Based on ten months of ethnographic fieldwork in three predominantly Russian-speaking towns – Visaginas in Lithuania, Daugavpils in Latvia, and Sillamӓe in Estonia – this paper argues that the Russian-speaking (non-)citizens, unable or unwilling to make claims in identitarian terms, use their taxpayer identity to try and become (full) members of the national collective. Focusing on taxes, the Russian speakers claim deservedness and loyalty to the state, thereby also redefining the membership criteria and the very political community of which they strive to become a part. Taxes allow the Russian-speaking residents to “undo” the national and neoliberal social contract in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, and reimagine a more inclusive society. Furthermore, taxes and the reciprocal relationships it implies enable the taxpaying Russian-speaking (non-)citizens to “turn the tables” by arguing that it is not them who are “bad” national subjects, but the state that falls behind its part of the social contract by failing to accept and care for them as contributing members. In academic, policy and popular imaginations, taxation often emerges as key to citizenship and necessary for a well-functioning democracy (Makovicky and Smith 2020). However, following Russian speakers’ efforts to claim membership, this paper shows that in certain national contexts, paying taxes is not enough to become (full) citizens.

Paper short abstract:

Croatia’s introduction of taxing the livelihood practice of distilling spirits transformed the status of work and traditions, making previously ordinary ways of life illegal, and led families to weigh their business self-interest against relationships, legal and moral responsibilities, and values.

Paper long abstract:

Distilling is a national Croatian winter pastime. Moreover, farming communities also derive much income from informal spirits sales. Distilling damaged, overripe fruit and the leftovers from winemaking is part of how farmers ecologically process what would otherwise be waste, and historically, it was a relatively unproblematic side-hustle. However, with post-socialist bureaucraticization came a new regulatory regime around distilled spirits, a regime that small-scale farming families have had difficulty navigating as it evolves and its enforcement waxes and wanes.

The paper elucidates the opaque qualities of the vibrant moonshine market by unpacking the values underpinning it and the relationships between the winemakers, craft distillers, and bootleggers of which it is constituted. In the northwest region of Istria, Croatia, taxing and regulating spirits challenged societal values in ways that forced new considerations into long-standing relationships, particularly around the circulation of the bio-waste necessary for distilling. Families sought to maintain livelihoods based on farming, winemaking, and distilling while navigating new regulatory regimes, but those who could not handle such changes retreated from formal business ownership and into the margins of the market. This shift demonstrated that tax can make and unmake markets in sometimes unintended ways. At its core, this paper illuminates how values in Istrian culture intersect in the practice of distilling and are complicated by the introduction of taxes and regulations.

Paper short abstract:

The paper presents which meaning and value the Georgian migrants residing in Poland bring to the practice of paying or not paying taxes, and at what extent migrant tax practices is the part of cultural practices articulated by them.

Paper long abstract:

The Georgian migrants residing in Poland since 1991 are mainly tied into four language communities which pre-defines their strategies and paths in articulating and, if happens, acquiring new cultural practices. As a result, one may observe dominantly four cultural and language areas present in the migrant practices of the Georgians residing in Poland, i.e. Georgian, Polish, Russian and English.

The paper addresses the tax practices articulated by Georgian migrants in Poland for analysing the co-relation of language and tax practices as key elements of the cultural practices.

Which way do the Georgians in Poland build their tax strategies? How are they connected with the language strategies operated in a given area of life in receiving communities in Poland? How do the Georgian migrants residing in Poland communicate with the receiving communities in Poland, in particularly local and national tax authorities?

The research paper depicts, based on the research results implemented in 2020-2023 derived from participant observation, individual and group conversations within the research group of Georgian migrants, which meaning and value they entitle the tax responsibility both towards their sending and receiving communities. The above-mentioned methods, including the tool of autobiographical narrative applied particularly in individual conversations, allow to follow the narrative towards the value and meaning of tax in correlation with language practices and domains where the given language is used at, e.g.professional, private, inter-communal and inter-generational.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the ways and degrees to which tax can remap space, thereby bolstering decolonization. I call this “decolonial taxation.”

Paper long abstract:

While scholars have long unpacked tax’s contribution to colonialism, few have underscored its ability to empower the colonized. Accordingly, this paper explores the ways and degrees to which tax can remap space, thereby bolstering decolonization. I call this “decolonial taxation.” Taking the US as its primary case study, the paper draws on legal geography and critical cartography to argue that tax achieves two broad types of spatial decolonization. The first, “endogenous tax remapping,” takes place either within or beyond the ambit of federal Indian law and comprises initiatives that stem from tribes. The second, “collective tax remapping,” involves both tribes and outsiders and can operate inside the framework of federal Indian law or take a more radical approach. Ultimately, the paper contends, decolonial taxation sheds light on a scantily explored yet powerful way of fighting back against settler colonialism.

Paper short abstract:

What costs can and cannot be deducted from taxes owed varies between countries. The deductible logics of a tax system produces particular financial incentives which shape financial landscapes, as well as particular ideas about private, professional, productivity, and wealth.

Paper long abstract:

In most countries around the world, yearly tax return activities, by individuals and companies, involve calculating deductions of costs to lower the taxes owed and, in theory, ensure taxes are paid on profits only. But what can be deducted, according to law and accounting expertise, varies hugely between tax systems. In addition, what costs can be legitimately proved e.g. with receipts, also impact what people end up deducting. In the US, interest payments on mortgages of homes are deductible for the purposes on income tax, essentially subsiding property ownership. In the UK and Sweden, deductions cannot be made to any costs related to your private life. In Bolivia, many small businesses do not have receipts for their costs due to the large informal market, meaning they struggle to bring down their tax burden in line with their actual profit. I argue that what can be deducted in different tax systems, both legally and practically, impacts not only taxes owed but also produces specific financial incentives which shape the economic landscape, as well as producing categories and links between these categories e.g. private and professional, productivity, and wealth. Deductability is also a way of shifting tax burdens between actors. Taking a comparative perspective, this talk brings together ethnographic data and deductible logics from Bolivia, Sweden and the UK, as well as secondary data from around the globe.

Paper short abstract:

This paper engages calls for "a return to politics" in anthropology vis-a-vis a new wealth tax in Bolivia. It thus proposes the notion of a "fiscal grievance politics" animating elite opposition to the tax in terms of race, education, and democracy salient in the wake of a 2019 coup.

Paper long abstract:

Drawing on fieldwork in Bolivia on a new wealth tax in place since 2021, this paper responds to recent calls for “a return to politics” in anthropology (Postero and Elinoff 2019) by proposing the notion of a “fiscal grievance politics” that, I argue, animates elite opposition to the tax in lowland Santa Cruz department. A key issue around wealth taxes in general and Bolivia’s specifically (the Impuesto a las grandes fortunas, “tax on large fortunes,” or IGF) is how they render wealth legible to the state and thereby taxable. In formulating their opposition to the IGF, Santa Cruz elites often seize on such an apparent ambiguity in how it applies to individuals versus business. In doing so, they act as a type of liberal, vigilant taxpayer (Willmott 2017), folding the wealth tax into a wider set of grievances over race, education, and democracy that have taken center stage with the 2019 coup against the Evo Morales government and its ongoing fallout. Interrogating why taxation is so available to this more expansive grievance politics, I suggest that this involves assertions of white ownership of tax (Willmott 2022) that are foundational to what political theorist Domenico Losurdo (2011) called the liberal project of “planetary master-race democracy.”

Paper short abstract:

This ethnographic study of the recent history of the implementation of public finance management reform in Somaliland shows the specific contribution anthropology can offer to understanding the complex effects of traveling models of tax management reform in a state without international recognition.

Paper long abstract:

This paper focuses on the processes of the Public Finance Management (PFM) reform implemented in Somaliland by UNDP and the World Bank in the last two decades. It dwells on deep descriptions of negotiations, adaptation, re-appropriations, and conflicting moments to unpack the complex relationship between prescriptive ideas of state-building through PFM and their enactments in the field. In describing the processes of translation of Somaliland’s PFM reform, it pays particular attention to the aspirations and political ideas of an emerging class of young Somali civil servants who take ownership of the PFM reform while remaining critical of international intervention in their country.

Drawing on science and technology studies, this paper describes two kinds of effects: the erasure of political claims and conflict in stabilizing this model of governance, and the emergence of new political ownership while strengthening ideas of national identity. Approaching state-building in Somaliland as an ethnographic object, this paper looks at conflicting views, coexisting models, competing approaches, and translation practices of a “traveling model” of international governance, to highlight the emergence of specific ideas of the state in post-conflict Somaliland.

Paper short abstract:

To address the overlooked link between taxation and sex work, in this paper we explore how sex workers in three European countries with different legal and fiscal approaches to prostitution, Italy, Portugal and Switzerland, understand and negotiate tax policies and practices.

Paper long abstract:

To address the overlooked link between taxation and sex work, in this paper we explore how sex workers in three European countries with different legal and fiscal approaches to prostitution, Italy, Portugal and Switzerland, understand and negotiate tax policies and practices. We approach the taxation of prostitution as a vehicle for exploring the conditions under which sex workers are, or are not, legible to themselves and others as citizens with full rights. We bridge three bodies of scholarship: sex industry studies, critical taxation studies, and citizenship studies to address these interrelated questions: How can we advance our understanding of citizenship by looking at the tax experiences of sex workers? How can we further our understanding of taxation as a marker and maker of citizenship by looking at the experiences of sex workers? Empirically, we present one of the few studies to explore sex workers' perspectives on the tax regimes they operate within and how they negotiate the challenges they face in their quest for full citizenship. Drawing on interviews conducted in the three countries, we show how our participants make sense of and negotiate very different fiscal policies and practices, how these affect their sense of self and belonging, and the challenges they face on a daily basis in their confrontation with economic, housing and social exclusion.