e-book

A Handbook of Economic Anthropology

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Those who work in economic anthropology are aware of the importance of the
economy in public thought and debate. In retrospect, Adam Smith might well
have titled his book The health of nations, for in our day, if not in his, it seems
that the health of a country is defined by its wealth, just as the final judgement
of an activity is its bottom line, how it gains or loses money. And overweening
in our day is economics, whether the formal, theoretical economics of scholars
like Gary Becker, the more applied economics of bodies like the Federal
Reserve Board or the Bank of England, or the less rigorous economics of
public thought and debate.

This state of affairs is likely both to exhilarate and to distress
anthropologists who work on economy. It exhilarates because it points out the
importance of what they study, which is, after all, economic life. It is likely to
distress because the economic life that they see in their research often looks so
different from the world construed by those theoretical, applied and popular
economics. And the word ‘world’ is not simple hyperbole, for economics, talk
of economy, touches on and assumes so much about human life: what it means
to be a person, how people think and act, what value is and what is valued,
how people relate to and deal with one another.

Perhaps the exhilaration, or maybe just the prospect of it, outweighs the
distress at the start of the century. The end of history that was foretold with the
fall of the Berlin Wall has not come to pass. The economic policies and
assumptions that came to predominate in the United Kingdom and the United
States, and the Washington Consensus that sought to make those policies and
assumptions global, look much less secure panaceas than they did when they
were presented, bright and shiny, by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.
The neoliberalism and free trade of the World Trade Organisation, the World
Bank and the International Monetary Fund attract significant dissent.

In such times, it is understandable that economic anthropologists would
have some hope that their view of the world, the world implied in their view
of economic life, might stimulate those who think not just about the wealth of
nations, but also about their health. Indeed, in the past few years there has been
a minor boom in works by economic anthropologists that, explicitly or
implicitly, challenge not just specific elements of conventional economic
thought, but also the fundamental ways that it construes economic life and
social life more generally.

Thus it is that this handbook is timely. Saying this does not mean that
dissent strides across each page, parading itself in capital letters. That is not
the purpose of this work, which is one of reference rather than advocacy.
Rather, what the contributors do in their chapters is present the texture of the
sub-discipline’s view of economic life. Moreover, that texture does not
uniformly provide grounds for dissent: careful readers will see much that
accords with conventional economic thought of one sort or another. However,
those careful readers also will see that even the chapters that accord with that
thought exhibit a more profound questioning. This questioning sees that
thought not as a self-evident truth or a valid statement about human nature, but
as a rough model that seems to work in specific areas of specific people’s lives
and, moreover, that seems to do so for social and political reasons. But this is
to be expected of economic anthropologists, who are concerned not with the
nature of economic thought and action in themselves, but with the place of
economy in people’s lives and thoughts.

This handbook is unlike any project I have undertaken. This is true not only
of its scope, but also of its purpose and intended readership. I am used to
works that revolve around a central argument or theme; this one, instead, is
more one of reference and consultation. I am used to works that have a fairly
narrow focus; this one covers a sub-discipline. I am used to works that have
seven or eight contributors at most; this one has over thirty. I am used to works
that are aimed at fellow anthropologists who might be interested in its theme;
this one is aimed at those outside the discipline who might be interested in
what economic anthropologists have to say about one or another aspect of
social or economic life.

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Ketersediaan

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Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

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Penerbit

Massachusetts : Edward Elgar Publishing Limited., 2005

Deskripsi Fisik

xv, 584 Hlm.

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

1-84376-175-0

Klasifikasi

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Tipe Isi

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Tipe Media

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Tipe Pembawa

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Edisi

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Subjek

EKONOMI

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

agus

Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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