Business as a gift: Family entrepreneurship and the ambiguities of sharing

Abstract

This chapter examines the wives' firms in Russia, a type of female enterprises that are dependent on husband's capital and support. Aimed to understand what it means to give a business as a gift in contemporary Russia, the paper looks at the interplay of economic transactions, their meanings and the relational dynamics among household members. It argues that the emergence of wives' firms addresses the issue of social reproduction and the precarious conditions of women's employment. At the same time, the endeavours to ensure social reproduction by reliance on entrepreneurial practices create ambiguities and tensions between participants of exchange. The paper shows that the objects identified as gifts take on ambiguous meanings since they are involved in different types of exchanges, including market and non-market transactions, and are structured by contradictory values and moral obligations.