A small group of men has gathered under the shadow of a tree close to the riverside in Lithuania's second largest city, Kaunas. They have weathered faces, are dressed in worn-out clothes and are talking loudly while smoking and drinking beer. They sit on some old blocks of cement on the ground. Around them garbage is carelessly scattered by people passing by. A wooden sign is hammered onto a nearby tree: ‘DARBO BIRŽA’ – ‘Unemployment Agency’. The sign shows that the men are looking for work. At the same time it serves as a sarcastic comment on the official unemployment agency (also called Darbo Birža), as the men both display their subaltern position and, in a counter-hegemonic approach, replicate the symbols of what they perceive to be an oppressive system (cf. Keesing 1992). They have created their own institution, one that aims to meet needs that the official system neglects. The principle behind the Darbo Birža at the riverside is that people who need to get work done – such as cutting wood, painting, cleaning stables, simple construction work or other kinds of physical work – drive by in their cars and collect the men they need for the day. For a day of hard work the men earn about 50 litas (14.50 euros).

I came across the men at the riverside during a research project in which I was investigating ‘invisible citizens’. By invisible citizens I mean people who opt to avoid formal and institutional relations with the state due to a general scepticism, mainly towards politicians, the police and public bureaucrats, who are perceived as showing little if any attention to the problems and concerns of the lower-middle-class, ‘ordinary’ people. The ‘invisible’ do not register their employment and therefore pay no tax. This is more than a little moonlighting on the side; it is a way of living.