Why are some things valuable while others are not? How much effort does it take to produce valuable objects? How can one explain the different appraisal of certain things in different temporal horizons and in different cultures? Cultural processes on how value is attached to things, and how value is re-established, are still little understood. The case studies in this volume, originating from anthropology and archaeology, provide innovative and differentiated answers to these questions. However, for all contributions there are some common basic assumptions. One of these concerns the understanding that it is rarely the value of the material itself that matters for high valuation, but rather the appreciation of the (assumed or constructed) origin of certain objects or their connection with certain social structures. A second of these shared insights addresses the ubiquity of phenomena of 'value in things'. There is no society without valued objects. As a rule, valuation is something negotiated or even disputed. Value arises through social action, whereby it is always necessary to ask anew which actors are interested in the value of certain objects (or in their appreciation). This also works the other way round: Who are those actors who question corresponding objective values and why?

The study of consumption, including such aspects as social differentiation, communication and the change of needs, has become a major field of study within material culture research. This volume includes ethnographic case studies documenting a wide range of local practices with regard to consumer goods. Each chapter deals with the social dynamics engendered by new modes of consumption in specific areas (Cte dIvoire, Zambia, Tanania, Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Niger).

Hans Peter Hahn is professor for social anthropology at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt (Germany).

"People at the Well" investigates habits, practices, and meanings of water through case studies from around the world. With its wide range and impressive diversity, this volume points to water practices in different cultures and shows that water is much more than a commodity, a resource, or a substance--it is a focal point of meanings and practices and thereby reflects culture as such. By providing close scrutiny, the contributors explore and discover the fundamental differences and dynamics of various water-related practices and cultural phenomena.

Urban agglomerations host the most vital and creative societies. This applies particularly to Africa, where cities have the highest growth rates world-wide and where the urban population is younger than anywhere else. Urban life-worlds are the basis for the development of new lifestyles and new cultural phenomena. Based on empirical ethnographic research, this book presents case studies that enhance our understanding of the dynamics of urbanity in Africa and beyond--by envisioning cities as crossroads where cultures, biographies, and networks meet.

In the context of commodification, material culture has particular properties hitherto considered irrelevant or neglected. First, the market is a spatial structure, assigning special properties to the things offered: the goods and commodities. Secondly, the market defines a principle of dealing with things, including them in some contexts, excluding them from others. The contributions to Market as Place and Space address a variety of aspects of markets within the framework of archaeological and anthropological case studies and with a special focus on the indicators of practices attached to the commodities and their valuation.

Things travel around the globe: they are shipped as mass consumer goods, or transported as souvenirs or gifts. There are infinite ways for things to be mobile, not only in the era of globalisation but since the beginning of time, as the earliest traces of long distance trading show. This book investigates the mobility of things from archaeological and anthropological perspectives. Material Objects are characterised by temporal continuity, embodying a prior existence with lingering effects. Yet the material continuity disguises the transformations they may undergo, which only become evident upon closer examination. Objects are in perpetual flux, leaving visible traces of their age, usage, and previous life. While travelling through time, objects also circulate through space, and their spatial mobility alters their meaning and use with respect to new cultural horizons. As objects transform through time and space, so does the value attributed to them. Mapping out itineraries of value in the realm of the material, allows us to grasp the nature of a given social formation through the shape and meaning taken on by its valued 'stuff'. It also provides insights into the nature of materiality, through the value ascribed to objects at a given point in time and space. This edited volume brings together studies of material culture, materiality and value, with regard to the mobility of objects, with the aim of tracing the ways in which societies constitute their valued objects and how the realm of the material reflects upon society.