Garagenicks: Smoke from Intermediate Technology and Mirrors of Sociological Concepts

Book review: Seleev S., Pavlov A. (2016) Garazhniki [Garagenicks], Moscow: OZ Land; Pavlov A. (2016) Demon peremen. Vvedeniye v operativnuyu alkhimiyu rossijskoj zhizni [The Demon of Change. Introduction to the Operational Alchemy of Russian Life], Ul’yanovsk: Pavlov A.B.

Abstract

Dmitry Khaustov – PhD in Economics, Associate Professor, Department of Finance and Accounting, Irkutsk State Transport University. Address: 15, Chernishevskij St., Irkutsk, 664074, Russian Federation. E-mail: dmitry.khaustov1982@mail.ru

Citation: Khaustov D. (2018) Garagenicks: Smoke from Intermediate Technology and Mirrors of Sociological Concepts. Mir Rossii, vol. 27, no 3, pp. 198–210 (in Russian). DOI: 10.17323/1811-038X-2018-27-3-198-210

The so-called ‘informal economy’ and ‘informal employment’ have recently attracted a lot of attention from the state, the public, and the academic community. While the interest of the state is driven primarily by pragmatic fiscal considerations, the general public and the academic community seek to understand the Russia that lies beyond the ring of Moscow. The book by Sergey Seleev and Alexander Pavlov, ‘Garagenicks’, definitely contributes to this understanding by exploring informal economic relations
in garage-building cooperatives. This is a deep socio-anthropological study relying on numerous field studies of the garage economy in a number of cities in the European part of Russia. In a separate, smaller book (written in a more journalistic manner), ‘The Demon of Change’, Alexander Pavlov summarizes other informal knowledge about the phenomena in question and provides additional insights about the grassroot economic practices underpinning the garage economy. The ‘demon’ in the title is a metaphor for the state’s influence on society, i.e. its attempts to organize social and economic reality in such a way that makes the garage economy less convenient to engage with. The review focuses on the parallel analysis of the concepts of ‘the garage economy’ and ‘intermediate technology’. The concept of ‘intermediate technology’ was introduced by the British economist of German origin, Ernst Schumacher, for emerging economies. It unites the techniques and technologies inscribed in the cultural structure of host communities, which are relatively cheap to implement, but at the same time are more expensive than similar available technologies in recipient societies. The author concludes that the garage economy in Russia can be treated as a specific case of appropriate technology in the terms of Ernst Schumacher.