Transformation, Agency and the Economy

This book outlines the contours of economics grounded in real-world phenomena and experiences by outlining the foundations of a Grounded Economics. This book provides a consistent framework to grasp the economy as an unfolding process.

Producing, buying, selling, inventing, destroying, caring, imagining, failing - with their everyday practices, people bring about what we call 'the economy'. In order to both understand and transform these practices in the context of mounting socio-ecological challenges, respective knowledge on economic practices becomes crucial. Yet, when it comes to the respective scientific discipline - economics - such knowledge is limited due to a long-standing tradition of favouring abstraction and modelling over assessing real-world economic action. By contrast, this book draws the contours of an economics grounded in real-world phenomena and experiences by outlining the foundations of a Grounded Economics. Building on the philosophical traditions of pragmatism, phenomenology and critical realism, and basic concepts from institutional thought and social scientific practice theories, the book provides a consistent framework to grasp the economy as an 'unfolding process'. By putting forward a strong account of economic agency, the framework allows to identify and differentiate between multiple pathways for social transformations. The book addresses readers from all branches of the social sciences seeking a new vision for economic research, particularly within political economy, heterodox economics, science studies and economic sociology.

Autorentext

Lukas Bäuerle is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Hamburg. He obtained his doctoral degree at the University of Flensburg with a thesis on a praxeological foundation of economics. His main research interests are institutional economics, social theories of practice as well as economic education and the role of economic knowledge in societal transitions.

Inhalt

1. Introduction 2. Lifeworld, sense-making and the primordial gap 3. Agents, institutions and the horizontal gap 4. Praxis, reflection and the vertical gap 5. What is the economy? An interim conclusion 6. Grounded economics 7. Conclusion