MTU Cork Library Catalogue

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The social life of things : commodities in cultural perspective / edited by Arjun Appadurai.

Contributor(s): Appadurai, Arjun, 1949-.
Material type: materialTypeLabelBookPublisher: Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1986Description: xiv, 329 p. ; 23 cm.ISBN: 0521357268.Subject(s): Commerce -- Social aspects | Economic anthropology | Commerce -- HistoryDDC classification: 306.3
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number Copy number Status Date due Barcode Item holds
General Lending MTU Crawford College of Art and Design Library Lending 306.3 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) 1 Available 00054483
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The contributors to this volume examine how things are sold and traded in a variety of social and cultural settings, both present and past. Bridging the disciplines of social history, cultural anthropology, and economics, the volume marks a major step in our understanding of the cultural basis of economic life and the sociology of culture.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

  • Foreword Nancy Farriss
  • Preface
  • Part I Toward an anthropology of things
  • 1 Introduction: commodities and the politics of value
  • 2 The cultural biography of things: commoditization as process
  • Part II Exchange, Consumption, and Display
  • 3 Two kinds of value in the Eastern Solomon Islands
  • 4 Newcomers to the world of goods: consumption among the
  • Part III Prestige, Commemoration, and Value
  • 5 Varna and the emergence of wealth in prehistoric
  • 6 Sacred commodities: the circulation of medieval relics
  • Part IV Production Regimes and the Sociology of Demand
  • 7 Weavers and dealers: the authenticity of an oriental carpet
  • 8 Qat: changes in the production and consumption of a quasilegal commodity in northeast Africa
  • Part V Historical Transformations and Commodity Codes
  • 9 The structure of a cultural crisis: thinking about cloth in France before and after the Revolution
  • 10 The origins of swadeshi (home industry): cloth and Indian society, 1700-1930
  • Index

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

An excellent collection of papers derived primarily from a symposium on commodities. The volume focuses on the relationship between commodities and culture, particularly the circulation of commodities in social life. Contributors attempt to integrate anthropological and historical approaches. The meaning of commodities in social life is discussed with relation to specific locations and periods: the Pacific, India, prehistoric and medieval Europe, the Middle East/Central Asia, and Africa. Two of the most intriguing articles deal with ``oriental'' (largely Central Asian) carpets and gat (parts of a shrub chewed for a stimulating effect). Unlike many edited symposia these well-researched and clearly written articles are accompanied by an excellent, integrative, and lengthy introduction by Appadurai. Each article has its own bibliography. Innovative in its approach and theory, this volume will interest upper-division undergraduates and specialists in anthropology and history.-L. Beck, Washington University

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