Moonshine, money, and the politics of liquidity in rural Russia

  • Rogers D
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Abstract

In many areas of rural Russia after socialism, moonshine serves as a local currency. In this article, I trace the intersecting circuits of moonshine, rubles, labor, and U.S. dollars in a Russian town to outline an approach to exchange that concentrates on the politics of liquidity—conflicts and inequalities rooted in the relative degrees of exchangeability associated with different transactables. I explore emerging axes of stratification after socialism at several junctures: between husbands and wives; among units of extended families; between moonlighters and their employers; and, through an analysis of ruble–dollar exchanges and Russia's “August crisis” of 1998, between rural households and international currency speculators.

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CITATION STYLE

APA

Rogers, D. (2005). Moonshine, money, and the politics of liquidity in rural Russia. American Ethnologist, 32(1), 63–81. https://doi.org/10.1525/ae.2005.32.1.63

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