Theory in Economic Anthropology

Jean Ensminger is Professor of Anthropology at the California Institute of Technology, who carries out research in the new institutional economics, rational choice theory, experimental economics, and economic development.

This outstanding book demonstrates the theoretical and empirical importance of economic anthropology for the twenty-first century. Ensminger and her colleagues combine the solid empirical work that anthropology is known for with innovative theoretical trends in economics. The work on institutions and social capital and on experimental economics is most notable to me. The book foreshadows a scientific contribution in these areas that will be very significant in the next decade. It is a pleasure to read the more empirical contributions, by established as well as junior scholars, which demonstate that economic anthropology remains solidly rooted in the tradition of careful, theoretically informed ethnography. This remarkable book should be read by a wide range of scholars and students interested in knowing how economic anthropology can advance social science in the twenty-first century.

• Chapter 1 Introduction: Theory in Economic Anthropology at the Turn of the Century Part 2 Part I: The New Institutionalism Chapter 3 Chapter 1: Property Rights and Incentives for Agricultural Growth: Women Farmer's Crop Control and their Use of Agricultural Inputs Chapter 4 Chapter 2: Transaction Cost Economics: Accomplishments, Problems and Possibilities Chapter 5 Chapter 3: Experimental Economics: A Powerful New Method for Theory Testing in Anthropology Part 6 Part II: Rethinking Wealth, Exchange, and the Evolution of Social Institutions Chapter 7 Chapter 4: Commodity Flows and the Evolution of Complex Societies Chapter 8 Chapter 5: Economic Transfers and Exchanges: Concepts for Describing Allocations Chapter 9 Chapter 6: Polanyi and the Definition of Capitalism Part 10 Part III: Small Producers Interacting with the Wider World Chapter 10 Chapter 7: Chayanov and Theory in Economic Anthropology Chapter 11 Chapter 8: Space, Place, and Economic Anthropology: Locating Potters in a Sri Lankan Landscape Chapter 12 Chapter 9: Indians, Markets, and Transnational Studies in Mesoamerican Anthropology: Predicaments and Opportunities Chapter 14 Part IV: Commodity Chains and the Formal/Informal Sector Distinction Chapter 15 Chapter 10: Transcending the Formal/Informal Distinction: Commercial Relations in Africa and Russia in the Post-1989 World Chapter 16 Chapter 11: Commodity Chains and the International Secondhand Clothing Trade: Salaula and the Work of Consumption in Zambia Part 18 Part V: The Role for Big Theory in Economic Anthropology Chapter 19 Chapter 12: When Good Theories Go Bad: Theory in Economic Anthropology and Consumer Research Chapter 19 Chapter 13: Decision-Making, Cultural Transmission and Adaptation in Economic Anthropology