Overview

The Cold War was fought between state socialism and the free market. That fluctuating relationship between public power and private money continues today, unfolding in new and unforeseen ways during the economic crisis. Nine case studies -- from Southern Africa, South Asia, Brazil, and Atlantic Africa - examine economic life from the perspective of ordinary people in places that are normally marginal to global discourse, covering a range of class positions from the bottom to the top of society. The authors of these case studies examine people's concrete economic activities and aspirations. By looking at how people insert themselves into the actual, unequal economy, they seek to reflect human unity and diversity more fully than the narrow vision of conventional economics.

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9781782384670

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Reviews

This volume will be a valuable contribution to economic anthropology. The empirically rigorous cases reveal just why the methods that we associate with anthropology are fundamental to our understanding of the economy...[It] urges us to rethink what 'the crisis' - the aftermath of the 2008 financial meltdown - really is. * Eric Bahre, Leiden University

This volume will be a valuable contribution to economic anthropology. The empirically rigorous cases reveal just why the methods that we associate with anthropology are fundamental to our understanding of the economy...[It] urges us to rethink what 'the crisis' - the aftermath of the 2008 financial meltdown - really is. * Eric Bahre, Leiden University

Author Information

Keith Hart is a co-director of the Human Economy Program at the University of Pretoria and Centennial Professor of Economic Anthropology at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His recent books include The Human Economy: A Citizen's Guide (with Jean-Louis Laville and Antonio David Cattani, 2010) and Economic Anthropology: History, Ethnography, Critique (with Chris Hann, 2011).

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