Product Description

The meaning that people attribute to things necessarily derives from human transactions and motivations, particularly from how those things are used and circulated. The contributors to this volume examine how things are sold and traded in a variety of social and cultural settings, both present and past. Focusing on culturally defined aspects of exchange and socially regulated processes of circulation, the essays illuminate the ways in which people find value in things and things give value to social relations. By looking at things as if they lead social lives, the authors provide a new way to understand how value is externalized and sought after. They discuss a wide range of goods - from oriental carpets to human relics - to reveal both that the underlying logic of everyday economic life is not so far removed from that which explains the circulation of exotica, and that the distinction between contemporary economics and simpler, more distant ones is less obvious than has been thought. As the editor argues in his introduction, beneath the seeming infinitude of human wants, and the apparent multiplicity of material forms, there in fact lie complex, but specific, social and political mechanisms that regulate taste, trade, and desire. Containing contributions from American and British social anthropologists and historians, the volume bridges the disciplines of social history, cultural anthropology, and economics, and marks a major step in our understanding of the cultural basis of economic life and the sociology of culture. It will appeal to anthropologists, social historians, economists, archaeologists, and historians of art.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #163212 in Books
• Published on: 1988-01-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Customer Reviews

Dated but still a good overview
I used this book as a 'first read' on the subject of 'things' in a PhD research project. While it is not the most recent text available on the subject (you might want to look at Children and Material Culture for a more recent text) it certainly provided a very clear introduction to the topic as well as a wide range of associated views on the subject. I focused on the Introduction and the 1st Chapter by Appendurai himself as they cover historical ground around the research and thinking about 'things' but I dipped into the other chapters as/when they seemed appropriate. Appendurai's writing style is an easy read as are the other authors so while it delivered the overview I was needing it also made for enjoyable reading and provided some useful references for other work on the subject. Overall, the book provides a good, if slightly dated, view of the relationships between stuff/commodities and cultural values.