Negotiation, social indebtedness, and the making of urban economies in Ulaanbaatar

This article explores the types of actions that are dramatically shaping the formation of the peri-urban economic landscape of the ger areas in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Drawing from numerous interviews and ethnographic fieldwork in and around a bus stop on the northern edge of the city, we trace the experience of two different women who each carve out a life and livelihood on this urban fringe. Examining the types of strategies they employ to secure land and employment, we argue that negotiations, speculation and enactions of relationships are vastly influential in shaping Ulaanbaatar’s urban economy from the ground up. Drawing from the anthropology of generative capitalism and the fungibility and heterogeneous nature of money, we discuss how the making of capitalist urban economies in Ulaanbaatar implicates a variety of decisions and materials, perceptions of the state, and local economies of exchange and reciprocity. Central to the shaping of these urban economies, we argue, are emerging moral quandaries and ethics arising out of these entanglements.