Geographies of Reconnection at the Marketplace

Since 2009, Vilnius’ urban landscape has been transformed by the rapid growth of farmers’ markets, mirroring tendencies in other parts of Europe and Northern America. Existing research has found that farmers’ markets foster social and spatial embeddedness, meaning locally based relationships characterized by trust and reconnection. In contrast to these findings, I argue that social and spatial embeddedness are not guaranteed outcomes of market transactions in Vilnius farmers’ markets. To explain this discrepancy, I argue that farmers’ markets should be understood as unbounded places that are relationally constructed with other retail places, and produced by historical trajectories of production and consumption.