Understanding commodity cultures : explorations in economic anthropology with case studies from Mexico / Scott Cook.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cook, Scott, 1937-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Economic anthropology--Mexico.

Economic anthropology.

Indians of Mexico--Economic conditions.

Indians of Mexico.

Free trade--Mexico.

Free trade.

Mexico.

Capitalism--Mexico.

Capitalism.

Mexico--Economic conditions.

Economic conditions.

Mexico--Economic policy--1994-.

Economic policy.

Physical Description:

xi, 349 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Lanham, Md. : Rowman & Littlefield, [2004]

Summary:

This book explores how lived experience is informed by and shapes the diversifying funds of knowledge that enable people under economic stress to make culturally-informed choices in their material interest. By selectively reviewing the economic anthropological record and critically examining specific studies in several of Mexico's (and Guatemala's) key regions, as well as the U.S.-Mexico borderlands and the new trans-border space in the U.S. and Canada for Mexican migrant labor, the author encourages readers to critically rethink their views of economic otherness in Mexico (and, by extension, elsewhere in Latin America and the Third World), and presents a new framework for reconciling the continuing attraction of concepts like 'penny capitalism' with the realities of a world ever more subjected to continental and global market projects of 'Dollar Capitalism'.

Contents:

1 Economic Otherness South of the Border: The Twentieth-Century Foundations and Formation of the Economic Anthropology of Mexico 19

2 Commodity Culture(s), Capitalism, and the Economic Anthropology of Mexico: The Case of B. Traven 41

3 Rereading Penny Capitalism: The Paradox of Poverty in a Land of Enterprise 65

4 Rereading Canonical Texts and Revisiting the "Great Debate": A Retrospective View from the Trenches through a Twenty-First-Century Lens 87

5 Commodity Value, Culture, and Economy 121

6 Understanding Peasants, Commodity Economy, and Change in the Mesoamerican Experience 155

7 Commodity Culture(s), Livelihood Strategies, and Reproductive Goals: A Critique of Ethnography 179

8 Social Reproduction of Commodity Value: Mapping Interior and Exterior Connections 215

9 The U.S.-Mexico Borderlands: Commodity Culture(s), Labor, and Capital 247

10 The New Transborder Space: NAFTAmerica, Migration, and Identity 267

Afterword: Commodity Culture(s), Economic Value, and the Future 297.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 307-332) and index.

ISBN:

0742534901

074253491X

OCLC:

53970791