Machines Against Measures

Irene Sotiropoulou is Senior Lecturer in the Business School at Edge Hill University, UK, where she is specializes in ecological, feminist, solidarity and non-capitalist economics.

• Part I: the non-mainstream modes of transaction and production and the quantity question 1. Introduction: the non-mainstream modes of transaction & production, or when what works in practice struggles to work in theory 2. Theoretical background: Capitalist patriarchy, quantification, historical materialism in the field and the “alternatives” to capitalism 3. Theory again: Is measuring a form of violence? 4. Approaches, research methodologies the quantitative methods problem Part II: The practices of quantifying otherwise 5. Quantities and measures in the non-mainstream field 6. The question of time 7. The question of value 8. ICTs in the non-mainstream field 9. Machines otherwise? Part III: Machines, measures and (social) reproduction 10. Machines, measures, and the neoliberal version of capitalist patriarchy 11. Machines and measures in service of (social) reproduction 12. Capitalist patriarchal reprise: measures and machines as contested means of (re)production 13. Conclusion: “The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House” and the options we have Bibliography

In Greece, the financial and economic crisis of 2009 produced a social crisis. A multitude of grassroots initiatives responded to it, and some of these experimented with methods of production and exchange outside the mainstream economy. Irene Sotiropoulou's research considers how such ventures can develop tools and technologies, in particular those that quantify and measure work and goods, independently of, and in opposition to, capitalism and patriarchy - issues that will concern all who hope for social change.