Economic Anthropology

Author: Chris Hann
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745699391
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 161

Book Description
This book is a new introduction to the history and practice of economic anthropology by two leading authors in the field. They show that anthropologists have contributed to understanding the three great questions of modern economic history: development, socialism and one-world capitalism. In doing so, they connect economic anthropology to its roots in Western philosophy, social theory and world history. Up to the Second World War anthropologists tried and failed to interest economists in their exotic findings. They then launched a vigorous debate over whether an approach taken from economics was appropriate to the study of non-industrial economies. Since the 1970s, they have developed a critique of capitalism based on studying it at home as well as abroad. The authors aim to rejuvenate economic anthropology as a humanistic project at a time when the global financial crisis has undermined confidence in free market economics. They argue for the continued relevance of predecessors such as Marcel Mauss and Karl Polanyi, while offering an incisive review of recent work in this field. Economic Anthropology is an excellent introduction for social science students at all levels, and it presents general readers with a challenging perspective on the world economy today. Selected by Choice as a 2013 Outstanding Academic Title

Economies and Cultures

Author: Richard R Wilk
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429974892
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 376

Book Description
This book introduces economic anthropology to countries where it has never been taught before, including Vietnam, China, Brazil, Argentina, and Italy. It identifies the fundamental practical and theoretical problems that give economic anthropology its unique strengths and vision.

Anthropology and the Economy of Sharing

Author: Thomas Widlok
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 131736970X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 241

Book Description
This book examines the economy of sharing in a variety of social and political contexts around the world, with consideration given to the role of sharing in relation to social order and social change, political power, group formation, individual networks and concepts of personhood. Widlok advocates a refreshingly broad comparative approach to our understanding of sharing, with a rich range of material from hunter-gatherer ethnography alongside debates and empirical illustrations from globalized society, helping students to avoid Western economic bias in their thinking. Anthropology and the Economy of Sharing also demonstrates that sharing is distinct from gift-giving, exchange and reciprocity, which have become dominant themes in economic anthropology, and suggests that a new focus on sharing will have significant repercussions for anthropological theory. Breaking new ground in this key topic, this volume provides students with a coherent and accessible overview of the economy of sharing from an anthropological perspective.

Economy and Ritual

Author: Stephen Gudeman
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1785335197
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 214

Book Description
According to accepted wisdom, rational practices and ritual action are opposed. Rituals drain wealth from capital investment and draw on a mode of thought different from practical ideas. The studies in this volume contest this view. Comparative, historical, and contemporary, the six ethnographies extend from Macedonia to Kyrgyzstan. Each one illuminates the economic and ritual changes in an area as it emerged from socialism and (re-)entered market society. Cutting against the idea that economy only means markets and that market action exhausts the meaning of economy, the studies show that much of what is critical for a people’s economic life takes place outside markets and hinges on ritual, understood as the negation of the everyday world of economising.

A Handbook of Economic Anthropology

Author: Carrier, James G.
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1839108924
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 560

Book Description
This timely Research Agenda examines the ways in which public–private partnerships (PPPs) in infrastructure continue to excite policy makers, governments, research scholars and critics around the world. It analyzes the PPP research journey to date and articulates the lessons learned as a result of the increasing interest in improving infrastructure governance. Expert international contributors explore how PPP ideas have spread, transferred and transformed, and propose a range of future research directions.

The Allure of Capitalism

Author: Emil A. Røyrvik
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 0857451863
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 300

Book Description
The “managerial revolution,” or the rise of management as a distinct and vital group in industrial society, might be identified as a major development of the modernization processes, similar to the scientific and industrial revolutions. Studying “transnational” or “global” corporate management at the post-millennium moment provides a suitable focal point from which to investigate globalized (post)modernity and capitalism especially, and as such this book offers an anthropology of global capitalism at its moment of crisis. This study provides ethnographically rich descriptions of managerial practices in a set of international corporate investment projects. Drawing also on historical and statistical data, it renders a comprehensive perspective on management, corporations, and capitalism in the late modern globalized economy. Cross-disciplinary in outlook, the book spans the fields of organization, business, and management, and asserts that now, in this period of financial crisis, is the time for anthropology to yet again engage with political economy.

Anthropology and Economy

Author: Stephen Gudeman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316462749
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 235

Book Description
Comparative and critical, Anthropology and Economy offers a uniquely cross-cultural view of economy. Using examples from market and non-market situations, the book shows how economies are built on five increasingly abstract spheres, from the house to community, commerce, finance, and meta-finance. Across these spheres, economy incorporates a tension between self-interested rationality and the mutuality of social relationships. Even when rational processes predominate, as in markets, economies rely on sociability and ritual to operate, whether as cronyism, pleas to divinities or the magical persuasions of advertising. Drawing on data and concepts from anthropology and economics, the book addresses wealth inequality, resource depletion, and environmental devastation especially in capitalism, providing an understanding of their persistence and ideas for controlling them. Given the recent financial crash, Gudeman offers a different understanding of the crisis and suggestions for achieving greater economic stability.

Economies across Cultures

Author: Rhoda H. Halperin
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349196231
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 229

Book Description
A study containing a combination of theory, ethnography and history, focusing upon critical issues of economic organization and change. Labour organization, land tenure and the division of labour by age and sex are treated in the context of both practical and theoretical problems.

Anthropology and Civilizational Analysis

Author: Johann P. Arnason
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438469411
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 416

Book Description
The concept of civilization has a long but checkered history in anthropology, and anthropological materials have been of great importance for the development of civilizational analysis in historical sociology. Anthropology and Civilizational Analysis brings these diverse fields together and explores a wide range of topics pertaining to civilization, from classical theories to contemporary rhetorical discourses, including detailed case studies of concrete practices documented through archival and ethnographic research. While many scholars and the wider public still think of civilization in simplistic terms, viewing it in terms of Enlightenment notions of progress and evolution to higher stages, others have pluralized the term only to create essentialized units which are only tenuously linked to historical processes. In this book contributors use dynamic approaches, including those rooted in the seminal writings of Émile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss, opening up the dimension of civilization as an important complement to other key terms such as society and culture in social science and historical analysis.

Economic Anthropology

Author: Society for Economic Anthropology (U.S.)
Publisher: Lanham, MD : University Press of America ; [S.l.] : Society for Economic Anthropology
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 456

Book Description
Developed from the inaugural conference of the Society for Economic Anthropology, this collection of papers reflects an interdisciplinary dialogue and a joint interest in a critical review of the various approaches used to examine the organization and transformation of economic systems.