Economy and Ritual
Studies in Postsocialist Transformations
1st Edition
Published on 1. February 2015
Book
Hardback
244 pages
978-1-78238-569-1 (ISBN)
Description
According to accepted wisdom, rational practices and ritual action are opposed. Rituals drain wealth from capital investment and draw on a mode of thought different from practical ideas. The studies in this volume contest this view. Comparative, historical, and contemporary, the six ethnographies extend from Macedonia to Kyrgyzstan. Each one illuminates the economic and ritual changes in an area as it emerged from socialism and (re-)entered market society. Cutting against the idea that economy only means markets and that market action exhausts the meaning of economy, the studies show that much of what is critical for a people's economic life takes place outside markets and hinges on ritual, understood as the negation of the everyday world of economising.
Reviews / Votes
"This volume links two fields of anthropological inquiry that were central to the development of the discipline, but have rarely been considered together in recent decades: the study of ritual and of economic systems and rationalities ... It is a welcome and fresh contribution that has no direct equivalents currently in print." * Sonja Luehrmann, Simon Fraser University "[This book] makes an innovative contribution to the way we think about economic anthropology - rituals, celebrations, feasts, and the partly constructive ways that they are indelibly tied to economic practices." * Russell Zanca, Northeastern Illinois UniversityMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Illustrations
5 illus.
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 16 mm
Weight
471 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78238-569-1 (9781782385691)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
02/2015
1st Edition
Berghahn Books
€30.99
Available for download
Persons
Stephen Gudeman, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota, has undertaken fieldwork in several countries of Latin America. During 2008-2012 he was co-director of the Economy and Ritual project at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle. Gudeman has published extensively in journals and written or edited eight books, the most recent of which are Economy's Tension (2008) and Economic Persuasions (2009). Chris Hann is a Founding Director of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology at Halle. He formerly taught anthropology at the Universities of Cambridge and Kent (Canterbury). Hann is co-author of Economic Anthropology. History, Ethnography, Critique (2011) and co-editor of Market and Society: The Great Transformation Today (2009).
Content
List of Illustrations Introduction: Ritual, Economy and the Institutions of the Base Stephen Gudeman and Chris Hann Chapter 1. Economy as Ritual: The Problems of Paying in Wine Jennifer Cash Chapter 2. Animals in the Kyrgyz Ritual Economy: Symbolic and Moral Dimensions of Economic Embedding Nathan Light Chapter 3. From Pig-Sticking to Festival: Changes in Pig-Sticking Practices in the Hungarian Countryside Bea Vidacs Chapter 4. Kurban: Shifting Economy and the Transformations of a Ritual Detelina Tocheva Chapter 5. The Trader's Wedding: Ritual Inflation and Money Gifts in Transylvania Monica Vasile Chapter 6. "We don't have work. We just grow a little tobacco": Household Economy and Ritual Effervescence in a Macedonian Town Miladina Monova Appendix: The "Economy and Ritual" Project and the Field Questionnaire Notes on Contributors Index