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Rural Sociology Commons

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City University of New York (CUNY)

Anthropology

Neoliberalism

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Full-Text Articles in Rural Sociology

Self-Reliance Beyond Neoliberalism: Rethinking Autonomy At The Edges Of Empire, Karen Hébert, Diana Mincyte Jan 2014

Self-Reliance Beyond Neoliberalism: Rethinking Autonomy At The Edges Of Empire, Karen Hébert, Diana Mincyte

Publications and Research

Across scholarly and popular accounts, self-reliance is often interpreted as either the embodiment of individual entrepreneurialism, as celebrated by neoliberal designs, or the basis for communitarian localism, increasingly imagined as central to environmental and social sustainability. In both cases, self-reliance is framed as an antidote to the failures of larger state institutions or market economies. This paper offers a different framework for understanding self-reliance by linking insights drawn from agrarian studies to current debates on alternative economies. Through an examination of the social worlds of semisubsistence producers in peripheral zones in the Global North, we show how everyday forms of …