Anthropologies of Class Poer, Practice, and Inequality [Hardcover]

A study of class and inequality from an anthropological perspective, bringing together an international team of researchers.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.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.Rising social, political and economic inequality in many countries, and rising protest against it, has seen the restoration of the concept of 'class' to a prominent place in contemporary anthropological debates. A timely intervention in these discussions, 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. Highly topical, it situates class within the context of the current economic crisis, integrating elements from today into the discussion of an earlier agenda. Using cases from North and South America, Western Europe and South Asia, it shows the - sometimes surprising - forms that class can take, as well as the various effects it has on people's lives and societies.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;lS4