Gazes into Trade

This book represents the culmination of a six-year interdisciplinary research project on informal trade and marketplaces in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Spanning from 2016 to 2022, the project involved a dedicated team of researchers gathering an array of data, ethnographic material, and personal interviews across Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and China. Bazaars and informal and semiformal marketplaces serve not just as economic hubs but as vital social spaces that encapsulate various layers of community life and interaction. The photographs in this book, while not the work of professional photographers, are presented with a commitment to authenticity and a focus on the realities of daily life in these markets. Aesthetics, though considered, are secondary to the honest depiction of the diverse aspects of informal trade explored in the different chapters (infrastructure, precarity, gender, to cite a few). As you turn the pages, you are invited to delve into the visual sociology of marketplaces, to appreciate the complexities of informal economies, and to recognize the profound impact of these spaces on the cultural and economic landscapes of the regions they serve.