Transformation Agency and the Economy

<p>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.</p>