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Marginal gains : monetary transactions in Atlantic Africa / Jane I. Guyer ; with a foreword by Anthony T. Carter.
Lippincott Library HG1370 .G89 2004
By Request
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Guyer, Jane I.
- Series:
- Lewis Henry Morgan lectures ; 1997.
- The Lewis Henry Morgan lectures ; 1997
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Money--Africa, West--History.
- Money.
- Economic anthropology.
- History.
- Africa, West--Economic conditions.
- Africa, West.
- West Africa.
- Economic conditions.
- Africa, West--Social conditions.
- Social conditions.
- Economic anthropology--Africa, West.
- Physical Description:
- xvii, 207 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm.
- Place of Publication:
- Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2004.
- Summary:
- In America, almost all the money in circulation passes through financial institutions every day. But in Nigeria's "cash and carry system" of the mid-1990s, 90 percent of the currency never went back to a bank after it was issued. How are two such radically different economies connected, as they have been for centuries in Atlantic Africa? The answer is a diversity of economic practices responsive to both local and global circumstances. In Marginal Gains, Jane I. Guyer explores and explains these often bewildering practices, including trade with coastal capitalism and across indigenous currency zones and within the modern popular economy. Drawing on a wide range of evidence, Guyer demonstrates that the region shares a coherent, if loosely knit, commercial culture. She shows how that culture actually works in daily practice, addressing both its differing scales of value and the many settings in which it operates, from crisis conditions to ordinary household budgets. The result is a landmark study that reveals how popular economic systems may work not just in Africa, but possibly elsewhere in the Third World.
- Contents:
- Diversity, bewilderment, and the multiplicity of African money
- Conversions: asymmetrical transactions
- Calculation: number and asymmetry
- Rank: people and money
- Quality: commodities and price
- Volatility: a performance in modern Nigeria
- Institutions: repertoires of financial option
- Balances: household budgets in a Ghanaian study
- Formalities: fixing debt and delay
- Bewilderment revisited.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 181-196) and index.
- ISBN:
- 0226311155
- 0226311163
- OCLC:
- 52601533
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