Modernizing bavaria

In 1949 Bavaria was not only the largest and best known but also the poorest, most agricultural, and most industrially backward region of Germany. It was further its most politically conservative region. The largest political party in Bavaria was the Christian Social Union (CSU), an extremely c...

The neoliberal landscape and the rise of islamist capital in turkey

The contributors to this volume offer a detailed history on the Turkish economy and the rise of Islamist capitalism. This study explores the underlying tensions behind the Taksim Square conflicts. Argues that capitalism is the driving force behind the division of the Turkish Bourgeoi...

State collapse and reconstruction in the periphery

In the 1990s, Yugoslavia, which had once been a role model for development, became a symbol for state collapse, external intervention and post-war reconstruction. Today the region has two international protectorates, contested states and borders, severe ethnic polarization and minority concerns...

The dynamics of german industry

Contemporary megaprojects

Contemporary “megaprojects” have evolved from the centralized, modernist projects undertaken in the past. With case studies ranging from mega-plantations in Southeast Asia to sports events, Contemporary Megaprojects explores the increasing ambition and pervasiveness of these projects, as well a...

Management and morality

Drawing on extended ethnographic studies of management consultancies in the Oslo region of Norway, this book seeks to find a richer understanding of their role in contemporary work life and the attraction their practices exert on people. The author shows that management consultancy is an arena ...

The problem of money

Based on long-term medical anthropological research in northern Ghana, the author analyses issues of health and healing, of gender, and of the control and use of money in a changing rural African setting. He describes the culture of medical pluralism, so typical for neo-colonial states, and peo...

Participating in the global enterprise

Viewed through an anthropological lens, Automobili Lamborghini, the renowned Italian factory of super cars, presents a compelling case study. As an ethnography spanning three years, the book focuses on the different perspectives of the managers and the workers and the effects of the organizatio...

Shaping taxpayers

Ethnography up-close of a successful revenue authority. Fiscal anthropology in a modern / developed country. Application of tax law in practice. Knowledge making in a modern bureaucracy.

Facing the crisis

Facing the Crisis brings together ethnographic material from anthropological research projects carried out in various Italian industrial locations during the last economic crisis. With its wide number of locations and industries, the volume looks at all corners of the diverse Italian manufactur...

Experiencing wages

When discussing wages, historians have traditionally concentrated on the level of wages, much less on how people were paid for their work. Important aspects were thus ignored such as how frequently were wages actually paid, how much of the wage was paid in non-monetary form - whether as traditi...

Money counts

Credit and debt in an unequal society

Investigates the political reasons for South Africa adopting an allegedly self-regulating market despite its disastrous effects and identifies the colonialist ideas of property rights as a mainstay of the existing social order.

Marketing hope

Looks at how get-rich-quick schemes manifest themselves in a Siberian town. By focusing on the social dynamics of these popular economies, Leonie Schiffauer provides insights into how capitalist logic is learned and negotiated, and how it affects local realities in a post-Soviet environment.

Economy, crime and wrong in a neoliberal era

Covers a wide range of industry practice and economic activity Challenges common views of neoliberalism Shows the difficulty of defining right and wrong and of assigning responsibility for wrongful activity

Commerce as politics

This is the first comprehensive economic history of the Basotho people of Southern Africa and spans from the 1820s to the present day. The book documents what the Basotho have done on their own account, focusing on their systematic exclusion from trade and their political efforts to insert them...

Living under austerity

Since its sovereign debt crisis in 2009, Greece has been living under austerity. This volume explores the effects of austerity policies on politics, health care, education, media, and other areas, and examines the crisis as the context for changing attitudes in Greek society regarding immigrati...

Democracy struggles

Theoretical contribution: the book unpacks culturally-framed and locally-circumscribed phenomena through looking at structural inequalities and through embedding them in global historical processes of political and economic shifts. Substantial ethnographic material and thick description ...

Contesting deregulation

The collection will differ from the books, because one focus is on the history of the European Economic Community and compare developments in the West (EEC and US) on different international levels. The 13 case studies show that the change to new forms of regulation cannot be reduced to ...

Money in the german-speaking lands

Germany’s leading role in EU economic policy following the 2008 financial crisis is in a sense only the latest step in a long history of attempts at political unification through economic integration. This volume follows this trajectory in German-speaking lands from the late Renaissance until t...

Property and equality

The ethnography of egalitarian social systems was first met with sheer disbelief. Today it is still hotly debated in a number of fields and has gained sophistication as well as momentum. This collection of essays on "property and equality" acknowledges this diversification by presenting researc...

On the origin of tourist experiences

Author places the key emphasis on the content of the stories in a historical longitudinal perspective with a phenomenological approach. Work has been fully revised form the Dutch version to better suit English readers.

Explorations in economic anthropology

At a time of rising global economic precarity and social inequality, the field of economic anthropology offers solutions through the study of local and contextualized economic practices. This book is made up of an exciting collection of succinct essays authored by leading scholars primarily fro...

The german skills machine

In recent years the German economy has grown sluggishly and created few new jobs. These developments have led observers to question the future viability of a model that in the past seemed able to combine economic growth, competitiveness in export markets, and low social inequality. This volume ...