Economy and Ritual : : Studies of Postsocialist Transformations / / ed. by Stephen Gudeman, Chris Hann.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Berghahn Books Complete eBook-Package 2014-2015
• MitwirkendeR: Cash, Jennifer,; Gudeman, Stephen,; Hann, Chris,; Light, Nathan,; Monova, Miladina,; Tocheva, Detelina,; Vasile, Monica,; Vidacs, Bea,
• HerausgeberIn: Gudeman, Stephen,; Hann, Chris,
• Place / Publishing House: New York; , Oxford : : Berghahn Books, , [2015]; ©2015
• Year of Publication: 2015
• Language: English
• Series: Max Planck Studies in Anthropology and Economy ; 1
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (214 p.)

According to accepted wisdom, rational practices and ritual action are opposed. Rituals drain wealth from capital investment and draw on a mode of thought different from practical ideas. The studies in this volume contest this view. Comparative, historical, and contemporary, the six ethnographies extend from Macedonia to Kyrgyzstan. Each one illuminates the economic and ritual changes in an area as it emerged from socialism and (re-)entered market society. Cutting against the idea that economy only means markets and that market action exhausts the meaning of economy, the studies show that much of what is critical for a people’s economic life takes place outside markets and hinges on ritual, understood as the negation of the everyday world of economising.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Map of Field Sites for Economy and Ritual Group -- Introduction:Ritual, Economy, and the Institutions of the Base -- 1 Economy as Ritual: The Problems of Paying in Wine -- 2 Animals in the Kyrgyz Ritual Economy: Symbolic and Moral Dimensions of Economic Embedding -- 3 From Pig-Sticking to Festival Changes in Pig-Sticking Practices in the Hungarian Countryside -- 4 Kurban: Shifting Economy and the Transformations of a Ritual -- 5 The Trader’s Wedding: Ritual Inflation and Money Gifts in Transylvania -- 6 “We don’t have work. We just grow a little tobacco.” Household Economy and Ritual Effervescence in a Macedonian Town -- Appendix: The “Economy and Ritual” Project and the Field Questionnaire -- Contributors -- Index