This book addresses the multifaceted issue of the state vis-a-vis those perceived as actors in the informal or simple commodity production economy. It discusses both state and traders' strategies to display recurrent themes, emphasized and combined differently in specific contexts.

This book addresses the multifaceted issue of the state vis-a-vis those perceived as actors in the informal or simple commodity production economy. It discusses both state and traders' strategies to display recurrent themes, emphasized and combined differently in specific contexts.

In the most comprehensive analysis to date of the world of open air marketplaces of West Africa, Gracia Clark studies the market women of Kumasi, Ghana, in order to understand the key social forces that generate, maintain, and continually reshape the shifting market dynamics.
Probably the largest of its kind in West Africa, the Kumasi Central Market houses women whose positions vary from hawkers of meals and cheap manufactured goods to powerful wholesalers, who control the flow of important staples. Drawing on more than four years of field research, during which she worked alongside several influential market "Queens," Clark explains the economic, political, gender, and ethnic complexities involved in the operation of the marketplace and examines the resourcefulness of the market women in surviving the various hazards they routinely encounter, from "coups d'etat" to persistent sabotage of their positions from within.

This new volume from SEA illuminates the importance of gender as a frame of reference in the study of economic life. The contributors are economic anthropologists who consider the role of gender and work in a cross-cultural context, examining issues of: historical change, the construction of globalization, household authority and entitlement, and entrepreneurship and autonomy. The book will be a valuable resource for researchers in anthropology and in the related fields of economics, sociology of work, gender studies, women's studies, and economic development. Published in cooperation with the Society for Economic Anthropology. Visit their web page.

This collection analyzes women’s narratives on the workplace. These narratives speak to the daily struggles women face in the workforce, such as inflexible and long work hours, masculine workplace cultures, employers’ stereotypical attitudes, and the absence of work-life balance initiatives. Viewed from a sociological perspective, the authors emphasize the reoccurring themes of devaluation, exploitation, and dehumanization of female workers resulting from unconscious or implicit bias and which directly impacts women’s quality of life.

The essays in the book analyze cases of cooperation in a wide range of ethnographic, archaeological and evolutionary settings. Cooperation is examined in situations of market exchange, local and long-distance reciprocity, hierarchical relations, common property and commons access, and cooperatives. Not all of these analyses show stable and long-term results of successful cooperation. The increasing cooperation that is so highly characteristic of our species over the long term obviously has replaced neither competition in the short term nor hierarchical structures that reduce competition in the mid term. Interactions based on strategies of cooperation, competition, and hierarchy are all found, simultaneously, in human social relations.

Co-published with the Society for Economic Anthropology, this work explores the social, political and economic contexts and consequences of economic interaction beyond the local systems. Because the focus of economic analysis is often local, particularly in anthropology, this book specifically aims analysis beyond the local system of economic interaction.

Economic development is an important focus of anthropological work in rural and urban communities around the world, and in this volume the contributors offer expert analyses on the theory and practice of development. Chapters cover the key topics of market systems, agricultural knowledge, modernization, population growth, participatory development, conservation strategies, culturally sustainable development, globalization and privatization, tourism, urban development, and financial markets. The cross-cultural focus of the volume provides original data on development processes in many countries, including the Philippines, Bali, Costa Rica, Mexico, Honduras, Venezuela, Kazakstan, and the United States. The book will be a welcome source of comparative research for anthropologists, development specialists, agricultural researchers, environmentalists, and geographers. Published in cooperation with the Society for Economic Anthropology. Visit their web page.

In the most comprehensive analysis to date of the world of open air marketplaces of West Africa, Gracia Clark studies the market women of Kumasi, Ghana, in order to understand the key social forces that generate, maintain, and continually reshape the shifting market dynamics.
Probably the largest of its kind in West Africa, the Kumasi Central Market houses women whose positions vary from hawkers of meals and cheap manufactured goods to powerful wholesalers, who control the flow of important staples. Drawing on more than four years of field research, during which she worked alongside several influential market "Queens," Clark explains the economic, political, gender, and ethnic complexities involved in the operation of the marketplace and examines the resourcefulness of the market women in surviving the various hazards they routinely encounter, from "coups d'etat" to persistent sabotage of their positions from within.