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Series

Volume 11

The Human Economy

Reviews

“The main strength of the book is its detailed description of interactions with multinational electronics companies who are rendered dependent on the powerful traders of Huyustus … one of the most exciting aspects of this book was that it is based on long-term and multi-site fieldwork.” • Kate Maclean, University College London

“It is a highly interesting book based on a well-researched phenomenon. It analyzes a relevant topic that hasn't been investigated so far: the commercial link between technology multinationals and 'popular' markets.” • Matías Dewey, University of St. Gallen

Description

Addressing the infrastructural, social and legal complexities of a global commodity chain, this book uses an ethnographic analysis of the encounter between multinational corporations and popular traders in the Bolivian Andes. It offers a situated account of the everyday work of chain (un)making, and practices of translation, accommodation and contention. It highlights traders’ collective action, understanding of economic concepts and regulatory principles, and traces the circulation of goods and money beyond market exchange. All in all, it aims to comprehend the reproduction of the native trading system amid global connections, and to humanize our understanding of the economy by grounding it in everyday life, bottom-up socio-material infrastructures and morality.

Subject: Political and Economic AnthropologyDevelopment Studies

Area: Latin America and the Caribbean

Contents

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Of Related Interest

After the Pink Tide

Corporate State Formation and New Egalitarianisms in Latin America

Exchange and Markets in Early Economic Development

Informal Economy in the Three New Guineas

Morality and Economic Growth in Rural West Africa

Indigenous Accumulation in Hausaland