The Human Economy Series
()
About this series
The idea of an informal economy emerged from, and is a critique of, the ideology of ‘economic development’. It originated from Keith Hart’s recognition of informal economic activity in 1960s Ghana. In the context of four colonialisms – German, British, Australian and Dutch – this book recounts Hart’s effort in 1972 to introduce the informal ‘sector’ into development planning in Papua New Guinea. This was problematic, because ‘the market’ was scarcely institutionalized, and traditional modes of exchange persisted stubbornly. Rather than conforming with post-colonial economic ideology, the subjected people pushed back against imposed bureaucracy to practice informal and hybrid modes of economic activity.
Titles in the series (8)
- People, Money and Power in the Economic Crisis: Perspectives from the Global South
1
The Cold War was fought between “state socialism” and “the free market.” That fluctuating relationship between public power and private money continues today, unfolding in new and unforeseen ways during the economic crisis. Nine case studies -- from Southern Africa, South Asia, Brazil, and Atlantic Africa – examine economic life from the perspective of ordinary people in places that are normally marginal to global discourse, covering a range of class positions from the bottom to the top of society. The authors of these case studies examine people’s concrete economic activities and aspirations. By looking at how people insert themselves into the actual, unequal economy, they seek to reflect human unity and diversity more fully than the narrow vision of conventional economics.
- Money in a Human Economy
5
A human economy puts people first in emergent world society. Money is a human universal and now takes the divisive form of capitalism. This book addresses how to think about money (from Aristotle to the daily news and the sexual economy of luxury goods); its contemporary evolution (banking the unbanked and remittances in the South, cross-border investment in China, the payments industry and the politics of bitcoin); and cases from 19th century India and Southern Africa to contemporary Haiti and Argentina. Money is one idea with diverse forms. As national monopoly currencies give way to regional and global federalism, money is a key to achieving economic democracy.
- From Clans to Co-ops: Confiscated Mafia Land in Sicily
4
From Clans to Co-ops explores the social, political, and economic relations that enable the constitution of cooperatives operating on land confiscated from mafiosi in Sicily, a project that the state hails as arguably the greatest symbolic victory over the mafia in Italian history. Rakopoulos’s ethnographic focus is on access to resources, divisions of labor, ideologies of community and food, and the material changes that cooperatives bring to people’s lives in terms of kinship, work and land management. The book contributes to broader debates about cooperativism, how labor might be salvaged from market fundamentalism, and to emergent discourses about the ‘human’ economy.
- Money at the Margins: Global Perspectives on Technology, Financial Inclusion, and Design
6
Mobile money, e-commerce, cash cards, retail credit cards, and more—as new monetary technologies become increasingly available, the global South has cautiously embraced these mediums as a potential solution to the issue of financial inclusion. How, if at all, do new forms of dematerialized money impact people’s everyday financial lives? In what way do technologies interact with financial repertoires and other socio-cultural institutions? How do these technologies of financial inclusion shape the global politics and geographies of difference and inequality? These questions are at the heart of Money at the Margins, a groundbreaking exploration of the uses and socio-cultural impact of new forms of money and financial services.
- Credit and Debt in an Unequal Society: Establishing a Consumer Credit Market in South Africa
7
South Africa was one of the first countries in the Global South that established a financialized consumer credit market. This market consolidates rather than alleviates the extreme social inequality within a country. This book investigates the political reasons for adopting an allegedly self-regulating market despite its disastrous effects and identifies the colonialist ideas of property rights as a mainstay of the existing social order. The book addresses sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists and legal scholars interested in the interaction of economy and law in contemporary market societies.
- Commerce as Politics: The Two Centuries of Struggle for Basotho Economic Independence
8
This is the first comprehensive economic history of the Basotho people of Southern Africa (in colonial Basutoland, then Lesotho) and spans from the 1820s to the present day. The book documents what the Basotho have done on their own account, focusing on their systematic exclusion from trade and their political efforts to insert themselves into their country’s commerce. Although the colonial and post-colonial periods were unfavourable to the Basotho, they have, before and after colonial rule, launched impressive commercial initiatives of their own, which bring hope for greater development and freedom in their struggle for economic independence.
- Land and the Mortgage: History, Culture, Belonging
9
The mortgaging of land is not just economic and legal but also social and cultural. Here, anthropologists, historians, and economists explore origins, variations, and meanings of the land mortgage, and the risks to homes and livelihoods. Combining findings from archives, printed records, and live ethnography, the book describes the changing and problematic assumptions surrounding mortgage. It shows how mortgages affect people on the ground, where local forms of mutuality mix with larger bureaucracies. The outcomes of mortgage in Africa, Europe, Asia, and America challenge economic development orthodoxies, calling for a human-centered exploration of this age-old institution.
- Exchange and Markets in Early Economic Development: Informal Economy in the Three New Guineas
10
The idea of an informal economy emerged from, and is a critique of, the ideology of ‘economic development’. It originated from Keith Hart’s recognition of informal economic activity in 1960s Ghana. In the context of four colonialisms – German, British, Australian and Dutch – this book recounts Hart’s effort in 1972 to introduce the informal ‘sector’ into development planning in Papua New Guinea. This was problematic, because ‘the market’ was scarcely institutionalized, and traditional modes of exchange persisted stubbornly. Rather than conforming with post-colonial economic ideology, the subjected people pushed back against imposed bureaucracy to practice informal and hybrid modes of economic activity.
Theodoros Rakopoulos
Theodoros Rakopoulos is Associate Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo. He has most recently published on citizenship, property, statehood and conspiracy theory. His book Passport Island: The Market for EU Citizenship in Cyprus tackles citizenship by investment programmes and elite Russian migration to ‘Europe’ (Manchester University Press, 2023).
Related to The Human Economy
Related ebooks
Credit and Debt in an Unequal Society: Establishing a Consumer Credit Market in South Africa Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMoney at the Margins: Global Perspectives on Technology, Financial Inclusion, and Design Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Food Sharing Revolution: How Start-Ups, Pop-Ups, and Co-Ops are Changing the Way We Eat Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Optimal Money Flow: A New Vision of How a Dynamic-Growth Economy Can Work for Everyone Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Nonfiction Book Marketing and Launch Plan - Workbook and Planning Guide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBottleneck: Moving, Building, and Belonging in an African City Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Patchwork City: Class, Space, and Politics in Metro Manila Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAuthenticity and Authorship in Pacific Island Encounters: New Lives of Old Imaginaries Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAfrican Futures: Essays on Crisis, Emergence, and Possibility Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAssessment of Microinsurance as Emerging Microfinance Service for the Poor: The Case of the Philippines Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJostling Between �Mere Talk� and Blame Game?: Beyond Africa�s Poverty and Underdevelopment Game Talk Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings1. Uncovering the Treasures of Africa: A Guide to Documenting Indigenous Knowledge Management: 1 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Polarizing Development: Alternatives to Neoliberalism and the Crisis Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRefugee Entrepreneurial Economies in Urban South Africa Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBillion Dollar Napkin (2nd Edition) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHow Music Came to the Ainchan People Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Managing Modernity in the Western Pacific Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Future of Africa: Reform, Development, Progress or Progressive Decline Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMarket Encounters: Consumer Cultures in Twentieth-Century Ghana Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDoing Good By Doing Good: Why Creating Shared Value is the Key to Powering Business Growth and Innovation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShare This!: How You Will Change the World with Social Networking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Beach Bungalow Build: Zanzibar Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDisrupting Africa: The Rise and Rise of African Innovation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5New Routes for Diaspora Studies Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStart-up City: Ten Tales of Exceptional Entrepreneurship from Bangalore's Software Miracle Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsReckoning with Homelessness Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Impact Investing A Complete Guide - 2020 Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAdmired Disorder: A Guide to Building Innovation Ecosystems: Complex Systems, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, And Economic Development Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Anthropology For You
The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The White Album: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bullshit Jobs: A Theory Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dark Matter of the Mind: The Culturally Articulated Unconscious Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5America Before: The Key to Earth's Lost Civilization Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Psychology of Totalitarianism Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bright-sided: How Positive Thinking is Undermined America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Trouble With Testosterone: And Other Essays On The Biology Of The Human Predi Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stories of Rootworkers & Hoodoo in the Mid-South Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Humans: A Brief History of How We F*cked It All Up Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Survive in Ancient Egypt Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Regarding the Pain of Others Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Collected Essays: Slouching Towards Bethlehem, The White Album, and After Henry Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Serpent and the Rainbow Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A History of the American People Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bruce Lee Wisdom for the Way Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Civilized to Death: The Price of Progress Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Selfie: How We Became So Self-Obsessed and What It's Doing to Us Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Body Language Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Related categories
Reviews for The Human Economy
0 ratings0 reviews