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On the fringe of western Europe, yet fully integrated into the capitalist market, the rural economy of the west of Ireland seems to provide a fascinating object of analysis to the student of European folk cultures. This book concentrates on a particular aspect of that rural economy: the social organization and cultural construction of work in a community of family farms. The concept of work, which is primarily farm work, is taken here as a very elementary set of ideas, images and experiences that enable us to penetrate in the different cultural spheres that intersect life on an Irish family farm. Work, the author concludes, is to this farming community what the Kula ring is to the Trobriand islanders - a kind of Maussian "total social fact" the analysis of which incorporates a comprehensive description of a particular social system.
"... a valuable volume. Well researched and solidly argued ... Author and material are intriguinglymatched." · Choice
"... an important contribution toward an understanding of rural Irish culture and society." · Reviewers Bookwatch
Preface
Alan Macfarlane
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1. Memories from the West
Chapter 2. Languages and Practices
Chapter 3. An Enquiry into the Economy
Chapter 4. Tamed Commodities
Chapter 5. The Moral Boundaries of Farm Work
Chapter 6. Workers and Machines
Chapter 7. The Community Through Monetary Exchanges
Chapter 8. Tönnies in the West of Ireland
Chapter 9. The Intricacies of the Gift
Chapter 10. Family and Gender
Chapter 11. Maximising Kinship Relations
Chapter 12. The Social Life of Space
Chapter 13. Individualism, Morality, and Sentiment
Chapter 14. Work As Metaphor: The Abrogation of the Economy
Concluding Remarks
Images and Imagination – A Photographic Appendix
Bibliography
Index