Anthropologies of Class
Power, Practice, and Inequality
Published on 5. February 2015
Book
Hardback
248 pages
978-1-107-08741-5 (ISBN)
Description
Rising social, political and economic inequality in many countries, and rising protest against it, has seen the restoration of the concept of 'class' to a prominent place in contemporary anthropological debates. A timely intervention in these discussions, this book explores the concept of class and its importance for understanding the key sources of that inequality and of people's attempts to deal with it. Highly topical, it situates class within the context of the current economic crisis, integrating elements from today into the discussion of an earlier agenda. Using cases from North and South America, Western Europe and South Asia, it shows the - sometimes surprising - forms that class can take, as well as the various effects it has on people's lives and societies.
Reviews / Votes
'This volume re-establishes class as a fundamental concept in anthropology and shows how inadequate identity-based analyses are. In excellent case studies and theoretical essays, it brilliantly demonstrates that understanding global and local property relations is central to the study of culture, politics and society.' Don Robotham, City University of New York Graduate Center 'Class remains a vital concept for critical social science. This volume shows that anthropologists, traditionally sceptical, have in fact much to contribute both theoretically and ethnographically.' Chris Hann, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology 'Anthropologies of Class is a vitally important publication, not only for what it says about class but for what it says about anthropology ... Class talk, which for many anthropologists is dated and tiresome, is illustrated in the ethnographic chapters to be relevant and lively, and I hope that the discipline takes note of the argument and evidence here, even if it requires a bit of disciplinary soul-searching in response.' Jack David Eller, Anthropology Review DatabaseMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
5 Line drawings, unspecified
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
515 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-107-08741-5 (9781107087415)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
02/2015
Cambridge University Press
€68.99
Available for download
E-Book
02/2015
Cambridge University Press
€76.49
Available for download
Persons
James G. Carrier is an Associate at the Max-Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, and the Departments of Anthropology at Indiana University and Oxford Brookes University. Don Kalb is Professor of Sociology and Social Anthropology at Central European University, Budapest, and Senior Researcher in the Anthropology Department at Utrecht University, The Netherlands.
Content
Introduction: class and the new anthropological holism Don Kalb; 1. The concept of class James G. Carrier; 2. Dispossession, disorganization, and the anthropology of labor August Carbonella and Sharryn Kasmir; 3. The organic intellectual and the production of class in Spain Susana Narotzky; 4. Through a class darkly, but then face to face: praxis through the lens of class Gavin Smith; 5. Walmart, American consumer-citizenship, and the erasure of class Jane Collins; 6. When space draws the line on class Marc Morell; 7. Class trajectories and indigenism among agricultural workers in Kerala Luisa Steur; 8. Making middle-class families in Calcutta Henrike Donner; 9. Working-class politics in a Brazilian steel town Mao Mollona; 10. Export processing zones and global class formation Patrick Neveling; 11. Global systemic crisis, class, and its representations Jonathan Friedman.