Introduction: commodities and the politics of value

“This suggests that anthropologists who follow the social life of money (Appadurai 1986) cannot assume that transformations of value take place in the same way or with the same ontological status whenever money moves across structurally similar political thresholds (i.e., from government to…”

“So, rural tourism can be seen as an arena where different values meet and have to be negotiated between different agents and where the value-as-belief is transformed into value-as-property and back again, creating various ‘regimes of value’ (Appadurai, 1986).”

“By barring circulation, this process of “enclaving” (Appadurai, 1986) partially separates prison labor from “the economy.””

“In ideologies of market exchange, the sociality underlying economic production should not be taken into account in determining the value of objects (Appadurai 1986; Myers 2001).”

“Tourists and retailers have bought these goods, not for their use but for their symbolic values (Graburn 1976 ; Appadurai 1986 ; Spooner 1986 ; Garcia Canclini 1990 ).”

“…of Melanesia (Malinowski 1922; see also Munn 1986; Mauss 1990; Weiner 1992), in an ongoing process of gifting that ultimately tied people together in a materially mediated social entanglement/enchainment through space and time (cf. Appadurai 1986; Fowler 2004: 53–78; Lazarri 2005; Hoskins 2006).”

“On the global processes and the transformations wrought by commodities, see Appadurai (1986). reflection about what daily habits amount to that one can really talk about the consolidation of a sense of national identity.”

“Things and objects also have a social life (Appadurai 1986) that can be important for funeral cultures.”

“Cattle and goats as ‘enclaved commodities’ in the changing agrarian economy Since the 1980s, social theorists have argued that it is what people do (acquire, transact, exchange, transfer as gifts, display, consume and dispose) with things that gives social life much of its meaning (Appadurai 1986).”

“Igor Kopytoff and Arjun Appadurai have transcended the divide between substantialism and formalism by looking at the meanings produced in specific culturally construed forms of exchange, i.e., by looking at the meaning produced in specific exchange situations rather than the construction of exchange systems in general…”

“The outcomes of this process are at University of Newcastle on February 15, 2013jos.sagepub.comDownloaded from greatly influenced by the discourses of value operating within a field of cultural production (Allen and Lincoln, 2004; Appadurai, 1986; Meyer, 2000).”

“This is most likely a form of ‘turnstile effect’ (cf. Appadurai 1986, Dietler 1996, 2001) where certain objects associated with aristocratic culinary practice have a restricted social distribution (Fredriksen 2005, p. 295), probably as an outcome of a hybridization process in which local and exotic…”

“…Simmel's insight, the well-known volume edited by Arjun Appadurai, The Social Life of Things, set out to demonstrate that "politics (in the broad sense of relations, assumptions and contests pertaining to power) is what links price and value in the social life of commodities" (Appadurai 1986:57).”

“Through this process of selection, collection and by placing local consumption as part of a global environmental movement, the meal takes on social and environmental “regimes of value” (Appadurai 1986, p. 4).”

“Yet a pet owner's decision to euthanize a cat or dog with diabetes does not necessarily stem from perceiving the animal to be more like an interchangeable thing than as a unique self (Appadurai 1986 ; Graeber 2001 ; Kopytoff 1986).”

“My inferences have largely been influenced by Appadurai's ( 1986 , 5) advice that:”

“Both Ronald (2009) and Appadurai (1986) have analysed how money takes on different qualities depending on the relationships they forge.”

“In anthropology, Nancy Munn (1986) has argued that the act of giving away food cultivated in the gardens of Gawa Island created the fame that enabled participation in the Kula exchange of red shell-disc necklaces and white shell armbands of extraordinary value.”

“In comparison to a commodity – which is characterized by its exchangeability at a specific moment in time (Appadurai 1986) – an asset is distinct in delivering a consistent and reliable income stream (Birch and Muniesa 2020).”

“It also neatly describes the conditions that lead to a tournament of value (see Appadurai 2005[1986]: 21).”

“Within this context, Appadurai (1986) argues that the persons involved in the various stages of the commodity flow whether producers, marketers/ producers, or consumers generate different kinds of mythologies about the commodities and their relationships to them.”

“Conceptually, we seek to engage with debates around the specificity or otherwise of indigenous people’s experience of modernity, and, more specifically, commodities (Appadurai, 1986, 1996; Miller, 1995; van Binsbergen, 2005).”

“Our travels with whey have been aided by kindred literature that follows things through places, divisions of labour, social relations, more-than-human actor-networks and other material-discursive webs (e.g. Appadurai, 1986; Latour, 2005; Marx, 1992; Mol, 2002).”

“The ‘‘biographies’’ or ‘‘social lives’’ (Appadurai 1986; Kopytoff 1986) of donated Kraft Dinner boxes are structured by social knowledge, i.e., that Kraft Dinner is palatable, easy to store, and easy to prepare in food-secure households so it must retain these properties in food-insecure…”

“This is but one aspect of the whole range of functions inherent in the ‘social life of things’ (Appadurai 1986).”

“…on the social biography of the artefacts deposited in wetlands provides insights into the changing meanings and social roles, and the social identity, that an artefact gained and acquired throughout its social life (Appadurai 1986; Kopytoff 1986; Helms 1993; Gosden and Marshall 1999; Gosden 2005).”

“Without intending necessarily pejorative implications, the sale of Aboriginal art is a case of “commoditizing” a cultural resource (Appadurai 1986; Kopytoff 1986).”

“2.13 In both the museum and the cemetery objects can reveal their “cultural bibliography” (Appadurai, 1986; Kopytoff, 1986) that influences how they are interpreted.”

“…cultural institutions such as UNESCO, and some Western governments to stop antiquities trafficking situates the traffic in Asian antiquities within a global “regime of value” (Appadurai 1986: 15–16) in terms of which the East is a more-or-less passive victim of the agency of Western collectors.”

“We have seen how the disembedding of commodities can generate fetishistic representations among consumers and producers alike (Appadurai, 1986).”

“The acts of deposition served as the conclusion of their life cycle (Appadurai 1986; Kopytoff 1986; Helms 1993; Gosden and Marshall 1999).”

“…interaction between the processes of production and consumption (D. Miller, 1987, 1995) we cannot forget that while the ‘demand’ – defined as a ‘socially regulated and generated impulse’ (Appadurai, 1986: 32) for the Western has been rising, that for the ‘traditional-Japanese’ has not died.”

“As a consequence of the increasing Value and Volatility in Senegal 34 distance between sites of production and consumption, the imagined possibilities for exchange that were often discussed, rarely matched the material conditions of most families (Appadurai 1986:46).”

“Given this purpose, we align ourselves broadly with research in economic sociology and the anthropology of valuation that has focused on how value emerges from substantial interactions between people [67].”

“The ability to produce will be countered by the role of “rulers and traders” (Appadurai 1986:33), the desire to have other peoples’ stuff, and the longing for authenticity (Lindholm 2008).”

“Appadurai (1986, 28) has described this situation as the “aesthetics of decontexualization”, a process of “diversion” of the regular flow of commodities whereby the value of things increases by placing them in an unlikely context.”

“The changing social lives of some of the items just mentioned—tomatoes and tortillas—provide good examples of the “commodity careers” (Appadurai 1986:15) foodstuffs can realize.”

“A theoretical conceit about the changing meanings and uses of things thus highlighted the materiality of human and historical circumstances.(36) By 2000, Appadurai had re-focused his ideas to emphasize “flow,” the rhythms, repetitions and “patina” through which human and social contexts become visible.”