TY - JOUR

T1 - The end of the bazaar? Morphology of a post-Soviet marketplace

AU - Skvirskaja, Vera

AU - Humphrey, Caroline

PY - 2021

Y1 - 2021

N2 - The proliferation of online commerce has modified retail and wholesale trade. This paper discusses the consequences for the large outdoor marketplaces that emerged in post-Soviet space. These markets, locally designated as bazaars, have become an important feature of economic life, attracting transnational, foreign traders and offering a huge range of commodities. Rather than attempting to define the bazaar as an economic category fixed in time and space, the article draws on anthropological and historical approaches and shifts attention to the idea of bazarnost’ (‘bazaar-ness’, that is, the kind of behaviours and practices seen locally to have a ‘bazaar-like’ quality). Using the case-study of a large container market in Odessa, Ukraine, it is argued that gentrification, changing attitudes to various ‘outsiders’, and the widespread shift to the online commerce have not (yet) annihilated the bazaar as a physical marketplace; rather, while becoming more abrasive, bazarnost’ has adapted to, and found its own niche among, regional unfolding economic and political processes.

AB - The proliferation of online commerce has modified retail and wholesale trade. This paper discusses the consequences for the large outdoor marketplaces that emerged in post-Soviet space. These markets, locally designated as bazaars, have become an important feature of economic life, attracting transnational, foreign traders and offering a huge range of commodities. Rather than attempting to define the bazaar as an economic category fixed in time and space, the article draws on anthropological and historical approaches and shifts attention to the idea of bazarnost’ (‘bazaar-ness’, that is, the kind of behaviours and practices seen locally to have a ‘bazaar-like’ quality). Using the case-study of a large container market in Odessa, Ukraine, it is argued that gentrification, changing attitudes to various ‘outsiders’, and the widespread shift to the online commerce have not (yet) annihilated the bazaar as a physical marketplace; rather, while becoming more abrasive, bazarnost’ has adapted to, and found its own niche among, regional unfolding economic and political processes.

KW - Faculty of Humanities

KW - marketplaces

KW - post-Soviet realm

KW - Odessa

KW - online trade

KW - Cross-cultural studies

KW - Faculty of Social Sciences

KW - anthropology

KW - ethnography

U2 - 10.1080/02757206.2021.1987233

DO - 10.1080/02757206.2021.1987233

M3 - Journal article

JO - History and Anthropology

JF - History and Anthropology

SN - 0275-7206

ER -