The International and the Everyday
How does everyday life shape the global economy? This episode explores real world experiences and new ideas.
Across factory floors, family kitchens, neighbourhoods, and informal markets, the international economy is lived and negotiated in ordinary places. This episode introduces the theoretical concepts behind Ground Level, SPERI’s podcast series on Everyday Political Economy.
Ground Level’s host, Dr Frank Maracchione, speaks with Professor Juanita Elias about why everyday life matters for studying and understanding global political economy. Together, they trace the emergence of everyday political economy, highlighting feminist and social reproduction approaches that have reshaped the field, before turning to the relationship between the everyday and the international.
The episode sets the conceptual foundations for the series and asks a simple but powerful question: What does the global economy look like when we start from everyday life?
Concepts discussed: commodification, social reproduction, agency, violence, and resistance.
Recommended Reading:
- Brassett, J., Elias, J., Rethel, L., & Richardson, B. (Eds.). (2015–2026). I-PEEL: International Political Economy of Everyday Life
- Davies, M. (2006). Everyday life in the global political economy. In M. de Goede (Ed.), International political economy and poststructural politics (pp. 173–190). Palgrave Macmillan
- Elias, J., & Rai, S. M. (2019). Feminist everyday political economy: Space, time, and violence. Review of International Studies, 45(2), 201–220
- Elias, J., & Rethel, L. (Eds.). (2016). The everyday political economy of Southeast Asia. Cambridge University Press
- Elias, J., & Roberts, A. (2016). Feminist global political economies of the everyday: From bananas to bingo. Globalizations, 13(6), 787–800
- Hobson, J. M., & Seabrooke, L. (Eds.). (2007). Everyday politics of the world economy. Cambridge University Press
- Maracchione, F. (2025). Decentring narratives of (de)globalization and crisis: Uzbekistan’s ‘everyday’ political economy amidst Russia’s war in Ukraine. Globalizations, 1–21
- Rai, S. M. (2024). Depletion: The human costs of caring. Oxford University Press
- Scheper-Hughes, N. (1992). Death without weeping: The violence of everyday life in Brazil. University of California Press
Credits
- Host and Editing: Frank Maracchione (ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow at SOAS University of London and part of the SPERI Presents... Working Group)
- Guest: Professor Juanita Elias (Professor of International Political Economy at the University of Warwick)
- Editing: Dillon Wamsley (Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Sheffield)
- Podcast Produced By: SPERI Presents… Committee
- Music By: Andy_Gambino