Anthropologies of Value

One of the most vibrant areas of inquiry in anthropology today surrounds questions of the commodification of human and natural life. In a world where cost-benefit analysis dominates economic and governmental decision-making, prices are routinely put on death and environmental devastation -- but little thought is given to what those valuations mean, both to those being blithely commodified or to the society behind it. Anthropologies of Value brings together a roster of stellar contributors to consider the question of the commodification of life through an anthropological lens. Explicitly questioning the validity of such commonplace binary oppositions as north/south, core/periphery, Western/non-Western, the collection aims to bridge disparate approaches and offer a new way forward for understanding, and combating, the rampant commodification of contemporary life.