ABSTRACT
This chapter explores market activities as a site in which local mores and identity are expressed. It discusses that engagement in market activity is associated with a particular form of production (household) and this in turn is deeply rooted in particular understandings about ‘work’. The market is a ‘political icon’ which holds strong ideological connotations and has played a central role both symbolically and practically in the postsocialist reforms. The relationship between these two forms of production – household and state – was complex and often fraught with tension and ambiguity. In socialist Bulgaria, many resources from the state-run cooperative were either officially or informally channelled toward the aid of household production. Market expansion also involved ethnic Bulgarians: not only locals, but traders who followed a circuit, travelling to different towns every day of the week in order to participate in the respective district markets.
