Notes for session II, Genealogies (2):

For today's class, I suggest that we first discuss Polanyi and the substantivist - formalist debate that he kicked off in anthropology, and then look at Sahlins who draws on Polanyi.

In the second half, we can look at Marx and the ways in which Marxist theory entered anthropology at different points (Turner, Graeber).

A thread running through these readings is the distinction between 'market' or 'capitalist' economy and all other 'pre-capitalist' forms, which are thought to require a different theoretical apparatus. How valid is this distinction? To what extent can insights about value creation formed in the context of non-state or 'primitive' societies apply to modern capitalist society and economy?

We should also explore the differences between Polanyi and Marx in their critiques of capitalism and economic theory, which also underlie differences between 'substantivist' and Marxist approaches within anthropology. On this, see this useful review: http://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviewofbooks/reviews/2010/234

Finally, we can discuss the questions posed by Savitha and Keya (pasted below):

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I have to mention that while we did look at all the material suggested, we could not focus or get into the details of each and every reading given time constraints and how detailed and dense a lot of them are.  Our questions are therefore based on an attempt to link all the readings together and find some common thread through which we can engage with them. 

Having discussed the concept of ' total prestations' from Mauss last week, we would like to pick up from where we left off to challenge 

1) the idea of ' economically deterministic' views of human action, even action that is non-transactional

2) the distinction between economy and society, or economy as a separate form society versus the embeddedness of economy within society.  

3) the distinction between types of societies and subsequently types of economies ( Sahlins's Zen versus Galbraithean societies)

this is followed by some question we had on the readings-

1)  While Graeber has emphasised action (and this includes Munn's 'potential for action' component) as the source of generating value, we are yet to account for what provides the motivation behind human action across societies?Without structure action or potential action that creates value cannot be explained and we feel that Graeber himself is getting caught in the trap of action and structure, even though he was suggesting a way out of it.

2)  Turner, Graber and Polanyi are attempting to offer us tools to understand value creation beyond the economically deterministic approach, whether it is through 'anthropologising' Marx's definitions of value, appropriation, fetishism or expanding notions of trade, money, markets, across different types of societies. But how do we fit Sahlins's dichotomy into this approach. Sahlins approach in affluent society is similar to what Strathern argued, when she said that we need different lenses or concepts to examine different societies and their practices.

3) Assuming Graeber is writing from a position where he is calling for an emphasis on moral economy, we would like to ask the class if the moral economy today has been rendered invisible by the market, in which case Polanyi's  exposition on markets superseding society have become more real, or, have our notions of value reached a stage where morality itself has shifted? 

​ *Also, according to Graeber our confusion or problem lies in our non recognition of action as being the source of value generation, i.e. fetishization, which has become the norm, this is across types of societies and economies, Is recognition possible in such a powerful and pervasive system of the market today?

Some questions and points of debate from the first session

The usefulness of the term ‘value’ (given its many registers) in understanding the processes of circulation and exchange will be something we will debate and discuss throughout the seminar.

Almost all scholars we read for the first session (Malinowski, Mauss and Graeber) strongly critique the prevalent and predominant theory of value coming from within the discipline of economics. The economic theory of value operates with the utilitarian notion of an individual as a rational and autonomous being seeking to economize and maximize his/her self interest. Anthropological approaches to value, instead, advocate the need to attend to the sociality within which value is embedded. A key observation within these theories is the role played by rituals, social conventions and mores that guide any act of exchange. The question that came up over and again in response to this claim is: ‘is it possible to discount self interest completely from social relationships that are geared towards creation of value? Do we not find vestiges of self interest in all kinds of social relationships? Reflecting on this question again, can we consider the possibility of reading the anthropological critique of utilitarian theory of value as not exempting the notion of self interest inherent in social relationships, but only resisting the reduction of all transactions among individuals to the maximization of self interest? From this point of view, how then do we distinguish social activity from economic activity, or is there a need to make this separation at all?

Another major question was around value and conservation of heritage. Where does value reside? In objects or in social relationships that give meaning to those objects? If we read Weiner closely, she seems to be arguing that there is a ‘transcendental value’ that inheres in objects (with a precondition that individuals recognize it).  This, then, also seems to imply that the value that inheres in objects also belongs to the immaterial realm of memory / history / time. What does such a reading of Weiner entail while thinking about the practical problem of conservation of heritage?

Others such as Munn seem to point to value as arising in action – as a potentiality that is realised in action. This is significant since the potential for action also rests on having objects to exchange. How does this link to objects that are kept out of circulation, or people who are out of the network of circulation by virtue of possessing nothing to exchange? In the former case of objects kept out of circulation, should one understand value in terms of actions that can keep it out of circulation (i.e., the very act of keeping it out of circulation as what contributes to its value)? This requires a further reading of Munn, in order to achieve more conceptual clarity in terms of how value is created through action.  To address the latter problem, we also need to look into debates around alms / charity, etc., which we will be reading about in the subsequent sessions.  

Another significant point to think about is, perhaps, the relation between ‘wealth’ and ‘value’, since none of the works discuss the meaning of ‘wealth’ itself. Do objects that are ‘valuable’ indicate a sign of wealth, even if they have no commercial value? Or does wealth presuppose commercial value?  Should wealth be understood in terms of what it can make available (‘purchase’), or in terms of what can be given away (‘gift’ and its relation to status)?

-Rashmi & Maithreyi

Notes for session 1: Reading the classics

For tomorrow's class we are reading two classics that you will find referred to again and again in subsequent readings - Malinowski's Argonauts of the Western Pacific and The Gift by Marcel Mauss. The purpose of this assignment is to give you first-hand acquaintance with these texts, but you are not expected to absorb all the ethnographic details. Instead, you should become familiar with the main elements of key ethnographic cases that have been so central to anthropological theorising on value and exchange, such as the kula ring and the ‘potlatch’. Feel free to read summaries or commentaries on these works in order to get the gist.

These writings also represent the beginnings of major theoretical debates in ‘economic anthropology’ that revolved around a series of dualisms: the ‘gift’ or reciprocity versus market exchange; society and individual; cultural norms versus rational choice; and so on. The chapters from Graeber sketch out some of the background of these debates.

For class, be prepared to discuss these questions:  What are the different ways in which anthropologists have understood value? Why have ritual exchange systems such as the kula been so central to anthropological theorising on value? How did Mauss and other early anthropologists theorise the relation between persons, objects and their meanings, and social structures in ‘gift economies’ or ‘primitive’ societies? What is the relation between circulation, sociality, and value creation in these examples?