Values and Valuables

From the Sacred to the Symbolic

Edited by Cynthia Werner, Duran Bell

Not available to order

Publication date:

13 January 2004

Length of book:

352 pages

Publisher

AltaMira Press

ISBN-13: 9780759115903

In this exciting new volume from the Society for Economic Anthropology, Cynthia Werner and Duran Bell bring together a group of distinguished anthropologists and economists to discuss the complex ways in which different cultures imbue material objects with symbolic qualities whose value cannot be reduced to material or monetary equivalents. Objects with sacred or symbolic qualities are valued quite differently than mundane objects, and the contributors to this volume set out to unravel how and why. In the first of three sections, the authors consider the extent to which sacred objects can or cannot be exchanged between individuals (e.g., ancestral objects, land, dreaming stories). In the next section, contributors discuss the value and power of markets, money, and credit. They consider theoretical models for understanding money transactions, competing currencies, and the power of credit among marginalized groups around the globe. The last section examines the ways in which contemporary people bestow symbolic value on some objects (e.g., family heirlooms, pre-Columbian artifacts, fashion goods) and finally how some individuals themselves are valued in monetary and symbolic ways. With its emphasis on the interplay of cultural and economic values, this volume will be a vital resource for economists and economic anthropologists. Published in cooperation with the Society for Economic Anthropology. Visit their web page.

Chapter 2 Acknowledgements
Chapter 3 Introduction: Values and Valuables: From the Sacred to the Symbolic
Chapter 4
Chapter I: The Power of the Sacred
Chapter 5
Chapter 1: What Mauss Did Not Say : Some Things You Give, Some Things You Sell, but Some Things You Must Keep
Chapter 6
Chapter 2: Keeping for Giving and Giving for Keeping: Value, Hierarchy, and the Inalienable in Yap
Chapter 7
Chapter 3: The Engendering of Ceremonial Knowledge Between (and Among) Warlpiri Women and Men in the Australian Central Desert
Chapter 8
Chapter II: Markets, Money, and Power
Chapter 9
Chapter 4: Conceptions of Capitalism: Godelier and Keynes
Chapter 10
Chapter 5: Little Tubes of Mighty Power: How Clay Tobacco Pipes From Port Royal, Jamaica, Reflect Socioeconomic Change in Seventeenth-Century English Culture and Society
Chapter 11
Chapter 6: The Dominance of the Cowry Relative to the Franc in West Africa
Chapter 12
Chapter 7: Ties that Dissolve and Bind: Competing Currencies, Prestige and Politics in Early Twentieth Century China
Chapter 13
Chapter 8: Crafts, Gifts and Capital: Negotiating Credit and Exchange in the Northern Philippines
Chapter 14
Chapter 9: Locating the Cultural Context of Credit: Institutional Alternatives on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation
Chapter 15
Chapter III: Contemporary Valuables and Symbolic Values
Chapter 16
Chapter 10: Inalienable Wealth in North American Households
Chapter 17
Chapter 11: Virtual Antiquities, Consumption Values, and the Cultural Heritage Economy in a Costa Rican Artisan Community
Chapter 18
Chapter 12: Women's Fashion Magazines: People, Things and Values
Chapter 19
Chapter 13: Numbered Days, Valued Lives: Statistics, Shopping and the Commodification of People
Chapter 20 Index
Chapter 21 About the Authors

This collection throws a fresh, clear light upon the borderlands between market and non-market exchange. Diverse chapters dissect a dazzling range of relationships between people and things, and between people through things, using the widest variety of methods of analysis. Sacred ritual objects, 'traditional' crafts and heirlooms share the stage with rival currencies, credit unions, dreams and brand names. The connection demonstrated between classic and post-modern material makes this an exceptional course reader...