Economy and Ritual

Studies of Postsocialist Transformations
1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-1-78238-569-1
Verlag: Berghahn Books

Buch, Englisch, Band 1, 214 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 471 g

Reihe: Max Planck Studies in Anthropology and Economy

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.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Gudeman, Stephen

Hann, Chris

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Ethnologie Kultur- und Sozialethnologie: Materielle Kultur, Wirtschaftsethnologie
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde Historische & Regionale Volkskunde
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde Volkskunde: Sitten, Traditionen, Mythen, Legenden
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Globalisierung, Transformationsprozesse

Inhaltsverzeichnis

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

Über Autor(innen)

Gudeman, Stephen
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).

Hann, Chris
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).

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).