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  1. Home
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  3. The Social Life of Things
  • Cited by 3583
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
June 2014
Print publication year:
1986
Online ISBN:
9780511819582
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511819582
Subjects:
Economics, Economics: General Interest, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Anthropology
Information

Book 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. 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.

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