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Conventional economic thought sees the economy as the sum of market transactions carried out by rational individuals deciding how to allocate their resources among the various things on offer that would satisfy their desires. Economic anthropologists see things differently. For them, the focus is the activities, relationships and systems through which objects are produced, circulate among people and ultimately are consumed, which take different forms in different societies and even in different parts of the same society. In this way, economic anthropology takes the rational market actors of conventional economic thought and places them in the world of people, relationships, systems, beliefs and values that begins with production and ends with consumption. This accessible and authoritative introduction to the field of economic anthropology offers students a fresh and fascinating way of looking at the economic world.
— Richard Wilk, Indiana University
In this book, James Carrier distils the key insights of this (sub-)discipline by combining classical studies with a range of contemporary investigations. Highlighting societies in which he himself has lived and carried out research, his effortless presentational style brings to life both underlying patterns and contingencies in how we choose to organize production, distribution and consumption.
— Chris Hann, Director, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology
This short but informative and compelling volume from a leading economic anthropologist achieves the important yet difficult task of rendering the complexities and contradictions of human behaviour accessible, immediate and relevant. While pitched at a non-specialist readership, all readers, including those steeped in anthropology and/or economics, will enjoy the journey that Carrier invites us to embark on as we encounter the concepts, ideas and practices devised by social actors in very different contexts and environments, as they go about the business of everyday life.”
— Victoria Goddard, Goldsmiths, University of London
James G. Carrier is an Associate of the Max Planck Institute of Social Anthropology and Adjunct Professor of Anthropology at the University of Indiana. His recent books include Anthropologies of Class: Power, Practice, and Inequality (co-editor with Don Kalb) and After the Crisis: Anthropological Thought, Neoliberalism and the Aftermath (editor).
Introducing economic anthropology
1. Production and what is produced
2. Changing production
3. Circulation, identity, relationship and order
4. Gifts and commodities
5. Commercial circulation
6. Considering Christmas
7. Consumption and meaning
8. Consumption in context
Afterword