Thrift and Its Paradoxes - From Domestic to Political Economy

Thrift is a central concern for most people, especially in turbulent economic times. It is both an economic and an ethical logic of frugal living, saving and avoiding waste for long-term kin care. These logics echo the ancient ideal of household self-sufficiency, contrasting with capitalism's wasteful present-focused growth. But thrift now exceeds domestic matters straying across scales to justify public expenditure cuts. Through a wide range of ethnographic contexts this book explores how practices and moralities of thrift are intertwined with austerity, debt, welfare, and patronage across various social and temporal scales and are constantly re-negotiated at the nexus of socio-economic, religious, and kinship ideals and praxis.

About the author

Catherine Alexander is Professor of Anthropology at Durham University. Drawing on fieldwork in Turkey, Kazakhstan and Britain, she has written widely on economic anthropology and material culture including households, recycling and waste.

Daniel Sosna is a senior researcher in the Department of Ecological Anthropology, Institute of Ethnology, Czech Academy of Sciences. Sosna is a specialist on ethnographic and archaeological research of waste regimes with a regional focus on Central Europe. He co-edited the book Archaeologies of Waste: Encounters with the Unwanted (Oxbow Books, 2017).

Summary

Through a wide range of ethnographic contexts this book explores how practices and moralities of thrift are intertwined with austerity, debt, welfare, and patronage across various social and temporal scales and are constantly re-negotiated at the nexus of socio-economic, religious, and kinship ideals and praxis.

Product details

• Authors: Catherine Sosna Alexander
• Assisted by: Catherine Alexander (Editor), Alexander Catherine (Editor), Daniel Sosna (Editor), Sosna Daniel (Editor)
• Publisher: BERGHAHN BOOKS, INC
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.03.2022
• EAN: 9781800734623
• ISBN: 978-1-80073-462-3
• No. of pages: 252
• Series: Max Planck Studies in Anthropology and Economy; Max Planck Studies in Anthropo
• Subjects: Guides > Law, job, finance; Social sciences, law, business > Social sciences (general); Business & Economics / Personal Finance / Money Management, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social, Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography, Political Economy, Social and cultural anthropology, Monetary Economics, Political and Economic Anthropology; Sociology