Real Economy

Essays in Ethnographic Theory

Neiburg Federico, Guyer Jane I.

This collection highlights a key metaphor in contemporary discourse about economy and society. The contributors explore how references to reality and the real economy are linked both to the utopias of collective well-being, supported by real monies and good economies, and the dystopias of financial bubbles and busts, in which people's own lives "crash" along with the reality of their economies. An ambitious anthropology of economy, this volume questions how assemblages of vernacular and scientific realizations and enactments of the economy are linked to ideas of truth and moral value; how these multiple and shifting realities become present and entangle with historically and socially situated lives; and how the formal realizations of the concept of the "real" in the governance of economies engage with the experiential lives of ordinary people. Featuring essays from some of the world's most prominent economic anthropologists, "The Real Economy" is a milestone collection in economic anthropology that crosses disciplinary boundaries and adds new life to social studies of the economy.

About the Author

Federico Neiburg is professor of social anthropology at the Museu Nacional, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. He is lead researcher for the Brazilian National Research Council and the coordinator of the Center for Research in Culture and Economy. His books include "Empires, Nations, and Natives: Anthropology and State-Making", and, most recently, "A Cultural History of Money in the Age of Empires".

Jane I. Guyer is professor emerita at Johns Hopkins University. She is the author of many books, including "Marginal Gains: Monetary Transactions in Atlantic Africa", "Legacies, Logics, Logistics: Essays in the Anthropology of the Platform Economy", and a new translation of Marcel Mauss's "The Gift: Expanded Edition".

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