Informal Trade, Gender and the Border Experience

Olga Sasunkevich is a lecturer at the Department of Media and executive co-director of the Center for Gender Studies at the European Humanities University, Vilnius, Lithuania.

’This book allows us to enter into a new (micro) world to discover the hidden dynamics of the female informal economy, bringing about a so-far neglected gender perspective on post-socialist borders. It not only sheds light on why women resort to informal and cross-border trade and how this is determined by gender segregation of formal and informal labour markets but also, through its in-depth ethnography, allows us to appreciate to what extent these activities are embedded into women's daily life practices.’ Abel Polese, Tallinn University, Estonia ’Olga Sasunkevich has written a well-researched, theoretically grounded, and thorough book, which is a must-read for everyone who seeks to understand the changing nature of post-Cold War borders in Eastern Europe. This micro-study of shuttle trade in the small Belarusian town of AÅ¡mjany, based on oral history interviews and long-term participant observation, gives readers an enlightening glimpse into the recent history of the Belarusian-Lithuanian border from the collapse of the Soviet Union to the 2007 enlargement of the Schengen Area. Her book is feminist in the truest sense: it gives agency and human dignity to women involved in cross-border trade, demonstrating that what is at stake is not merely self-exploitation, but also personal empowerment.’ Tatiana Zhurzhenko, IWM - Institute for Human Sciences, Austria

• Contents: Introduction; Shuttle trade in Asmjany: contextualizing oral history research; Shuttle trade and borders in Asmjany before the disintegration of the USSR; The emergence of national borders, the flourishing of trade: shuttle trade in Asmjany in the early 1990s; Maturation of the border, professionalization of shuttle trade (1994-2007); Persistence of the border, disappearance of trade? Shuttle trade in Asmjany after Schengen (2007-2011); Shuttle trade and gender relations: a female world in a provincial border town; Conclusion; Appendix; Bibliography; Index.