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A study of class and inequality from an anthropological perspective, bringing together an international team of researchers.
List of contents
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.
About the author
James G. Carrier is an Associate at the Max-Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, and the Departments of Anthropology at Indiana University and Oxford Brookes University.Don Kalb is Professor of Sociology and Social Anthropology at Central European University, Budapest, and Senior Researcher in the Anthropology Department at Utrecht University, The Netherlands.
Summary
Rising social, political and economic inequality has seen the restoration of the concept of 'class' to a prominent place in contemporary anthropological debates. 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.
Additional text
'Class remains a vital concept for critical social science. This volume shows that anthropologists, traditionally sceptical, have in fact much to contribute both theoretically and ethnographically.' Chris Hann, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology
