Thrift and its paradoxes : from domestic to political economy / edited by Catherine Alexander and Daniel Sosna.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Alexander, Catherine.

Contributor:

Alexander, Catherine, editor.

Sosna, Daniel, editor.

Series:

Max Planck Studies in Anthropology and Economy

Max Planck Studies in Anthropology and Economy ; v.10

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Consumption (Economics)--Social aspects.

Consumption (Economics).

Saving and investment.

Thriftiness.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (232 pages)

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Berghahn Books, Incorporated, 2022.

Summary:

Thrift is a central concern for most people, especially in turbulent economic times. It is both an economic and an ethical logic of frugal living, saving and avoiding waste for long-term kin care. These logics echo the ancient ideal of household self-sufficiency, contrasting with capitalism’s wasteful present-focused growth. But thrift now exceeds domestic matters straying across scales to justify public expenditure cuts. Through a wide range of ethnographic contexts this book explores how practices and moralities of thrift are intertwined with austerity, debt, welfare, and patronage across various social and temporal scales and are constantly re-negotiated at the nexus of socio-economic, religious, and kinship ideals and praxis.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction Thrift, Antithrift, Scale, and Paradox

Chapter 1. Making Savings

Chapter 2. Saving, Investment, Th rift? Welfare Beneficiary Households and Borrowing in South Africa

Chapter 3. Wages, Patronage, and Welfare: Th rift and Its Limits in Argentina’s Gran Chaco

Chapter 4. Generous Thrift: Postpastoral Cooperation and Fortune-Making among the Torghut of Mongolia

Chapter 5. Discretio and the Golden Mean: Working Out Frugality and Th rift in Two Czech Postsocialist Monasteries

Chapter 6. Regimes of Asceticism: Austerity and Thrift in a Spiritual Economy

Chapter 7. Saving and Wasting: The Paradox of Thrift in a Czech Landfill

Chapter 8. Thrift and Its Opposites

Afterword

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Other Format:

Print version: Alexander, Catherine Thrift and Its Paradoxes

ISBN:

9781800734630

1800734638

OCLC:

1310855808