Open AccessBook
Marginal Gains: Monetary Transactions in Atlantic Africa
Reads0
Chats0
TLDR
In "Marginal Gains" as discussed by the authors, Guyer explores and explains these often bewildering practices, including trade with coastal capitalism and across indigenous currency zones, and within the modern popular economy.Abstract:
In America, almost all the money in circulation passes through financial institutions every day. But in Nigeria's "cash and carry" system, 90 percent of the currency never comes back to a bank after it's issued. What happens when two such radically different economies meet and mingle, as they have for centuries in Atlantic Africa? The answer is a rich diversity of economic practices responsive to both local and global circumstances. In "Marginal Gains," Jane I. Guyer explores and explains these often bewildering practices, including trade with coastal capitalism and across indigenous currency zones, and within the modern popular economy. Drawing on a wide range of evidence, Guyer demonstrates that the region shares a coherent, if loosely knit, commercial culture. She shows how that culture actually works in daily practice, addressing both its differing scales of value and the many settings in which it operates, from crisis conditions to ordinary household budgets. The result is a landmark study that reveals not just how popular economic systems work in Africa, but possibly elsewhere in the Third World.read more
Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
Economization, part 2: a research programme for the study of markets
Koray Caliskan,Michel Callon +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, a research program devoted to examining the process of economization is proposed, which refers to the assembly and qualification of actions, devices and analytical/practical descriptions as economic by social scientists and market actors.
Journal ArticleDOI
Economization, part 1: shifting attention from the economy towards processes of economization
Koray Caliskan,Michel Callon +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors introduce the notion of "economization", which refers to the assembly and qualification of actions, devices and analytical/practical descriptions as "economic" by social scientists and market actors.
Journal ArticleDOI
The Anthropology of Money
TL;DR: The authors surveys anthropological and other social research on money and finance and emphasizes money's social roles and meanings as well as its pragmatics in different modalities of exchange and circulation.
Book ChapterDOI
Institutions and Development: A View from Below
Rohini Pande,Christopher Udry +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue the case for greater exploitation of synergies between research on specific institutions based on micro-data and the big questions posed by the institutions and growth literature.
Journal ArticleDOI
Aesthetics of Superfluity
TL;DR: The idea of the metropolis in European thought has always been linked to that of "civilization" (a form of existence as well as a structure of time) and capitalist rationalization as discussed by the authors.