Barter, Exchange and Value
An Anthropological Approach

This novel treatment of barter represents a topical addition to the literature on economic anthropology.

Caroline Humphrey (Edited by), Stephen Hugh-Jones (Edited by)

9780521406826, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 11 June 1992

212 pages
23.6 x 16 x 1.7 cm, 0.355 kg

This book concerns barter, a transaction in which objects are exchanged directly for one another without the use of money. Economists treat barter as an inefficient alternative to market exchange, and assume that it is normal only in 'primitive' economies or marks the breakdown of more developed exchange mechanisms. For their part, anthropologists have been more interested in the social and moral complexities of the 'gift', and treat barter dismissively as mere haggling. The authors of this collection do not accept that barter occupies a residual space between monetary and gift economies. Using accounts from different parts of the world, they aim to demonstrate that it is more than a simple and self-evident economic institution. Barter may constitute a mode of exchange with its own social characteristics occupying a specific moral space. This novel treatment of barter represents an original and topical addition to the literature on economic anthropology.

1. Introduction: Barter, exchange and value Caroline Humphrey and Stephen Hugh-Jones
2. Politicised values: the cultural dynamics of peripheral exchange Nicholas Thomas
3. Yesterday's luxuries, tomorrow's necessities: business and barter in northwest Amazonia Stephen Hugh-Jones
4. Some notes on the economics of barter, money and credit Luca Anderlini and Hamid Sabourian
5. Fair dealing, just rewards: the ethics of barter in North-East Nepal
6. Inter-tribal commodity barter and productivie gift-exchange in old Melanesia Alfred Gell
7. Qualified value: the perspective of gift exchange Marilyn Strathern.

Subject Areas: Economic history [KCZ], Economics [KC], Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC]