The Social Life of Things

The contributors to this volume examine how things are sold and traded in a variety of social and cultural settings, both present and past.

Autorentext
Arjun Appadurai, geboren 1949, ist Anthropologe und Goddard Professor für Medien, Kultur und Kommunikation an der New York University.

Inhalt

Foreword Nancy Farriss; Preface; Part I. Toward an anthropology of things: 1. Introduction: commodities and the politics of value Arjun Appadurai; 2. The cultural biography of things: commoditization as process Igor Kopytoff; Part II. Exchange, Consumption, and Display: 3. Two kinds of value in the Eastern Solomon Islands William H. Davenport; 4. Newcomers to the world of goods: consumption among the Muria Gonds Alfred Gell; Part III. Prestige, Commemoration, and Value: 5. Varna and the emergence of wealth in prehistoric Europe Colin Renfrew; 6. Sacred commodities: the circulation of medieval relics Patrick Geary; Part IV. Production Regimes and the Sociology of Demand: 7. Weavers and dealers: the authenticity of an oriental carpet Brian Spooner; 8. Qat: changes in the production and consumption of a quasilegal commodity in northeast Africa Lee V. Cassanelli; Part V. Historical Transformations and Commodity Codes: 9. The structure of a cultural crisis: thinking about cloth in France before and after the Revolution William M. Reddy; 10. The origins of swadeshi (home industry): cloth and Indian society, 1700 1930 C. A. Bayly; Index.