Anthropologies of Class
Power, Practice, and Inequality

A study of class and inequality from an anthropological perspective, bringing together an international team of researchers.

James G. Carrier (Edited by), Don Kalb (Edited by)

9781107087415, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 5 February 2015

248 pages, 5 b/w illus.
23.6 x 16 x 2 cm, 0.52 kg

'Anthropologies of Class is a vitally important publication, not only for what it says about class but for what it says about anthropology … Class talk, which for many anthropologists is dated and tiresome, is illustrated in the ethnographic chapters to be relevant and lively, and I hope that the discipline takes note of the argument and evidence here, even if it requires a bit of disciplinary soul-searching in response.' Jack David Eller, Anthropology Review Database

Rising social, political and economic inequality in many countries, and rising protest against it, has seen the restoration of the concept of 'class' to a prominent place in contemporary anthropological debates. A timely intervention in these discussions, this book explores the concept of class and its importance for understanding the key sources of that inequality and of people's attempts to deal with it. Highly topical, it situates class within the context of the current economic crisis, integrating elements from today into the discussion of an earlier agenda. Using cases from North and South America, Western Europe and South Asia, it shows the - sometimes surprising - forms that class can take, as well as the various effects it has on people's lives and societies.

Introduction: class and the new anthropological holism Don Kalb
1. The concept of class James G. Carrier
2. Dispossession, disorganization, and the anthropology of labor August Carbonella and Sharryn Kasmir
3. The organic intellectual and the production of class in Spain Susana Narotzky
4. Through a class darkly, but then face to face: praxis through the lens of class Gavin Smith
5. Walmart, American consumer-citizenship, and the erasure of class Jane Collins
6. When space draws the line on class Marc Morell
7. Class trajectories and indigenism among agricultural workers in Kerala Luisa Steur
8. Making middle-class families in Calcutta Henrike Donner
9. Working-class politics in a Brazilian steel town Mao Mollona
10. Export processing zones and global class formation Patrick Neveling
11. Global systemic crisis, class, and its representations Jonathan Friedman.

Subject Areas: Human geography [RGC], Economic history [KCZ], Political economy [KCP], Economics [KC], Politics & government [JP], Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC], Anthropology [JHM], Society & social sciences [J], Philosophy [HP], Social & cultural history [HBTB]