The program (https://www.hagley.org/research/conferences) for the conference, Hidden Capitalism: Beyond, Below, and Outside the Visible Market is now available. This one-day conference will take place November 10, 2017 at the Hagley Museum and Library in Wilmington, Delaware.
The conference’s twelve papers seek to expand understandings of capitalism by exploring the substantial economic activity that occurs at the margins and in the concealed corners of the formal economy. Uncovering these forgotten or obscured activities can focus new attention on our understanding of how capitalism works both with formal market institutions and at the same time incorporates informal, less visible institutional apparatus. The papers especially highlight the mutual dependency of the visible and invisible features of capitalism and how the moralities of each both converge and diverge.
The papers are transnational in scope, addressing episodes in France, the United States, Communist China, and India, as well as nationally-ambiguous cases of free-trade zones and offshore banking havens. They trace episodes involving apparel, scrap metal, liquor, lumber, and cotton, as well as regulatory conflicts over food and household commodities, knock-off clothing designs, businesses advertising “immoral” services, and enterprises operated by Hispanics and African Americans. All cases engage, in one way or another, with the boundaries of legality and the relationship between the official marketplace and the spaces that lie outside.
This conference was initiated by Lisa Jacobson (University of California, Santa Barbara) and Ken Lipartito (Florida International University), who were joined on the program committee by Roger Horowitz and Amrys Williams from the Hagley Library and Wendy Woloson from Rutgers University – Camden. The conference runs from 8:30-5:30 and will meet in the Copeland Room of Hagley’s library building.
Advance registration is free but required. Lunch is available onsite for advance payment of $15.00. A link to all of the conference papers will be available to those who have registered. To sign up to attend the conference, please contact Carol Lockman, clockman@Hagley.org or 302-658-2400, x243.
Carol Ressler Lockman
Manager, Hagley Center
PO Box 3630
Wilmington DE 19807
Organizational History Network 