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Abstract:
Prior to the collapse of communism, hundreds of thousands of migrants arrived in
various localities throughout COMECON countries by way of programs of mutual
cooperation and “socialist solidarity,” including in East Germany. Since the fall of
the Berlin Wall, many of these former contract workers have become entrepreneurs
mostly engaged in wholesaling and retailing. Local markets, increasingly comprised
of diverse peoples, play key roles in post-socialist economic development while
transnationally linking a variety of geographical and socio-cultural spaces. Based on
ethnographic
fieldwork in a bazaar in the eastern part of Berlin, this paper addresses
questions of (1) spatial continuities between the socialist past and the post-socialist
present, (2) mobility and transnational social and economic practices, and (3) the
negotiation of power and diversity in new marketplaces. I will argue that socialist
pathways of migration and longstanding transnational ties established during the
socialist period are still relevant to contemporary routes of migration and therefore
to trade, business, and the global flow of money.
