Embedded Autonomy: Self-Sufficient Households, Social Networks, and the Negotiation of Illegality in the Caspian Sturgeon Trade
On September 9th, Ilya Ermolin, an Associate Professor at the A. G. Vishnevsky Institute of Demography, presented his research on the illegal sturgeon caviar trade in the Lower Volga region at a LESI (Laboratory for Studies in Economic Sociology) seminar.
His report frames poaching as a survival strategy for local fishermen, adapting the concept of "social embeddedness" to the context of illegal activity. This context is characterized by numerous informal practices and exists partially within institutional voids. The study employs a critical case study strategy, an ethnographic approach, and sociobiography to address several research questions: How do communities reconfigure social capital under pressure from various interest groups and institutions? When does embeddedness support the livelihoods of households that depend on poaching, and when does it increase their vulnerability? How do marginalized actors—poachers and their families—navigate power struggles and participate in rule-making within these institutional voids?
The study's key findings include the following:
· Symbolic violence serves as a means of social communication and a primary force shaping poachers' lives and the rules of their trade. It is used to demonstrate legitimacy, restore a sense of justice, and establish and maintain regional rules and the "ethics" of poaching.
· Poaching constitutes a field of negotiated governance, where hybrid institutions emerge from the constant interaction of state, community, and market actors. "Krysha" (a system of corruption embedded within the state) and fraternal self-government (a form of communal justice) coexist as parallel logics. Meanwhile, Soviet collectivist norms persist in new, market-oriented practices, creating a set of contradictory rules that actors learn to exploit strategically.
· Women play a crucial role in poaching by acting as intermediaries between households engaged in illegal activities and the "krysha." Despite patriarchal constraints, a gender perspective proves significant in structuring the markets and building a stable, functioning system of trade relations.
The panelists emphasized that the author is tackling a complex, understudied, and rare topic, making his research highly significant for the social sciences. However, they noted that the paper touches on numerous complex and abstract concepts that need to be more clearly grounded in the empirical data. They suggested a more detailed description of the empirical material—including the processes of its collection and analysis—as well as a more precise formulation of the research objectives. The great potential of this work for studying community dynamics and the interactions between formal and informal structures was also highlighted.
A recording of the seminar is now available on VK (https://vk.com/video-229626247_456239048).