Search results

1 – 10 of 374
Article
Publication date: 4 September 2009

Richard James White

Using new empirical data from the UK focused on mutual aid and reciprocity, the purpose of this paper is to offer robust challenges to the logic and dominance of the

Abstract

Purpose

Using new empirical data from the UK focused on mutual aid and reciprocity, the purpose of this paper is to offer robust challenges to the logic and dominance of the commodification thesis. In finding mutual aid to be a significant coping strategy to get household tasks completed, in both affluent and deprived communities, the paper addresses the important question as to “why” mutual aid is so pervasive. Using qualitative insights as to “why” respondents engaged in mutual aid and reciprocity a considered response to this question, revolving around the instinctive and social nature of reciprocity, is made.

Design/methodology/approach

The research draws on previous Household Work Practice Studies, which have been influential in exploring the geographies of community self‐help. An in‐depth semi‐structured questionnaire, which adapts and develops previous successful approaches focused on mutual aid and volunteering, was employed across 100 households in two neighbouring wards in Leicester, UK.

Findings

The research found that the non‐commodified sphere of mutual aid was employed as a central coping strategy within the two communities investigated. The suggestion is that the extent of mutual aid in both deprived neighbourhoods and affluent neighbourhoods has been underestimated in previous research. However, the strength of the methodology resides with its understanding of the rationales being participation in mutual aid. This suggests that the natural and instinctive nature of reciprocity, and the social role that mutual aid plays within kin and non‐kin relations, helps explain its pervasiveness in the advanced economies.

Research limitations/implications

The methodology and methods were designed to explicitly harness a deep qualitative understanding of the relationship and attitudes that households adopt toward their informal coping strategies, and mutual aid in particular. Thus though this approach has uncovered rich qualitative data to inform the key arguments, the quantitative findings must be treated as speculative rather than conclusive.

Practical implications

In undermining the commodification thesis, the paper concludes that alternate and better approaches toward harnessing “the economic” in society must be pursued by policy makers. Crucially economic policy which promotes co‐operation over competition within society should be seen as earning the qualification of “advanced” economic practice.

Originality/value

This is the first paper which explicitly looks at the pervasive nature of mutual aid within the advanced economies, using primary data from Leicester. The value is seen on three levels: first, the original arguments made which highlight the pervasiveness of this informal coping strategy; second, the manner with which these contemporary insights are then contextualised with reference to the wider literature; third, the way in which this research adds to the calls to fundamentally re‐think our dominant attitudes (and policies) toward the commodified and non‐commodified spheres of work in the advanced economies.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 29 no. 9/10
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 25 October 2021

Amélie Artis and Virginie Monvoisin

This chapter intends to seize the different economic and financial dimensions of the crowdfunding and shows how this latter contributes to transforming donations through its…

Abstract

This chapter intends to seize the different economic and financial dimensions of the crowdfunding and shows how this latter contributes to transforming donations through its financialisation. Here, Polanyi's lessons on reciprocity and Keynes's lessons on monetary economics and conventions are enlightening. Indeed, by setting up an intermediary or by putting projects in competition, platforms develop the use of conventions linked to market coordination. By encouraging the monetarisation of expenses and projects and the commodification of donation activities, the crowdfunding not only becomes a tool of financialisation but also modifies social relations. Moreover, it creates new niches of financial exclusion, particularly for projects with a significant social or environmental dimension, and tends to make the financing of certain projects rely on savings rather than on monetary creation. Far from being the alternative and a counter-model to traditional finance, crowdfunding actually reinforces financialisation by introducing a new financial intermediary and contributes to its expansion in hybrid forms.

Details

Rethinking Finance in the Face of New Challenges
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80117-788-7

Keywords

Abstract

Details

A Sociological Examination of the Gift Economy: Envisioning the Future
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80455-118-9

Book part
Publication date: 30 March 2006

Noah Butler

This paper explores the economic character of relations between marabouts (Muslim holy persons) and followers in Niger. In particular, it uses the blurred edges between gifts and

Abstract

This paper explores the economic character of relations between marabouts (Muslim holy persons) and followers in Niger. In particular, it uses the blurred edges between gifts and commodities to contrast the (oft-divergent) modalities with which marabouts and followers conceptualize knowledge. Across Francophone West Africa, marabouts have historically depended largely on gift economies for their livelihood. Yet, followers are increasingly inclined to conceptualize the knowledge transmitted by marabouts as a commodity rather than as a gift. These developments suggest a growing tendency to view social relations with marabouts in terms of isolated transactions more so than continuing personal connections framed by enduring moral obligations.

Details

Markets and Market Liberalization: Ethnographic Reflections
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84950-354-9

Abstract

Details

A Sociological Examination of the Gift Economy: Envisioning the Future
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80455-118-9

Book part
Publication date: 19 May 2009

Obadia Lionel

This chapter considers the importation of brand images, a key concept in marketing studies, within anthropological approaches to culture and consumption. It does so through…

Abstract

This chapter considers the importation of brand images, a key concept in marketing studies, within anthropological approaches to culture and consumption. It does so through examining modes of cultural valuation toward “Made in China” products on the part of consumers. Following theoretical lines recently established by anthropologists in the study of culture, commodification, and consumption in global settings, and their emphasis upon culture as a label for goods, it also brings into the discussion issues in geopolitics and ethnicity, especially from the viewpoint of ethnographic evidence collected in France and Nepal. “Made in China” products are enmeshed in complex, intermingling, and conflicting imaginations of the Other, brand images, and are associated with the underlying social logic of consumption or avoidance of consumption, often paradoxical, but intelligible in both broad-ranging and local contexts.

Details

Economic Development, Integration, and Morality in Asia and the Americas
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84855-542-6

Article
Publication date: 1 December 2004

Colin C. Williams

A widely held supposition is that goods and services are increasingly produced and delivered for monetised exchange by capitalist firms in pursuit of profit. The result of this…

928

Abstract

A widely held supposition is that goods and services are increasingly produced and delivered for monetised exchange by capitalist firms in pursuit of profit. The result of this view of an ongoing encroachment of the market is that there is only one perceived future for work and it is one characterised by an ever more commodified world. The aim of this paper is to evaluate critically this discourse. Analysing the balance between commodified and non‐commodified work in the advanced economies, a large non‐commodified sphere is identified that, if anything, is found to be expanding relative to the commodified realm. Rather than reading the future of work as a natural and unstoppable progression towards a victorious, all‐powerful and hegemonic commodity economy, this paper thus opens up the feasibility of alternative futures beyond a commodified world.

Details

Foresight, vol. 6 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1463-6689

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 4 October 2012

Jamie Cross

Purpose – This chapter asks what we should make of the gift exchanges that take place between workers and their managers on the floor of a massive offshore manufacturing unit in…

Abstract

Purpose – This chapter asks what we should make of the gift exchanges that take place between workers and their managers on the floor of a massive offshore manufacturing unit in South India. Such exchanges appear anomalous in the ethnography of global manufacturing yet here they underpinned the organisation of hyper-intensive production processes.

Findings – Following diverse acts of giving, this chapter shows how these transactions constituted the performative and relational grounds on which workers came to know themselves and sought to shape the world around them. In doing so it extends the anthropology of work and labour by showing that acts of giving are integral to global commodity production.

Details

Political Economy, Neoliberalism, and the Prehistoric Economies of Latin America
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78190-059-8

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 2 May 2013

Fiona McCormack and Kate Barclay

Purpose – The authors introduce the chapters of Engaging with Capitalism with a discussion of anthropological and other social theory about peoples’ approaches to capitalism…

Abstract

Purpose – The authors introduce the chapters of Engaging with Capitalism with a discussion of anthropological and other social theory about peoples’ approaches to capitalism, especially peoples with vibrant noncapitalist social systems, such as are found in Oceania.Approach – The introduction is in the form of a review of anthropological and other social theory about interactions between capitalism and noncapitalist social systems.Findings – The theoretical literature has tended to dichotomize capitalist and noncapitalist societies. While heuristically it is useful to contrast capitalist and noncapitalist social systems, in practice once societies come into the orbit of capitalism people adapt elements of capitalism to suit their aims. Furthermore, societies generally considered thoroughly capitalist also include noncapitalist features. So it is more accurate to think of societies as involving a mix of capitalism and noncapitalism, and the nature of that mix is part of what makes each society distinct.Social implications – The theoretical dichotomization of societies as capitalist or not, with capitalism understood as being universal, and noncapitalism understood in general terms such as gift economy, is prevalent in public imaginaries. Domestic social policy and international development assistance are often based on this dualistic understanding. Such programs could work better if they were based instead on an understanding that each group of people has a dynamic economic system, which includes capitalist and noncapitalist elements that interact in ways influenced by their history and locality.Value of paper – The chapter provides a conceptual scaffold for thinking about the ways people engage with capitalism.

Details

Engaging with Capitalism: Cases from Oceania
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78190-542-5

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 30 November 2020

Tamar Diana Wilson

The eighteenth- and nineteenth-century fur trade in the United States and Canada that sent hundreds of thousands of furs to Europe and China relied on “Cheap Labor” and the

Abstract

The eighteenth- and nineteenth-century fur trade in the United States and Canada that sent hundreds of thousands of furs to Europe and China relied on “Cheap Labor” and the abundance of “Cheap Raw Materials,” that is to say, living beings such as sea otter, land otter, beaver, and seals. Native American labor, procured by and paid through trade goods in a kind of “putting out” piece-rate system, was cheap partially because their lives were maintained/reproduced through traditional agricultural or hunting and gathering economies. The commodification of fur-bearing animals led to their sharp decline and in some cases near extinction. Cheap labor and cheap living beings interacted dynamically in unison to enable capital accumulation under mercantile capitalism. At the very end of the nineteenth century, fur farming as a petty capitalist enterprise became common in Canada and the United States, and more recently has expanded greatly in China.

Details

The Capitalist Commodification of Animals
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83982-681-8

Keywords

1 – 10 of 374