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beads and money: notes toward a theory of wealth and power
Author(s) -
GRAEBER DAVID
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1525/ae.1996.23.1.02a00010
Subject(s) - invisibility , adornment , visibility , power (physics) , relation (database) , sociology , epistemology , neoclassical economics , economics , positive economics , philosophy , anthropology , computer science , geography , physics , quantum mechanics , database , artificial intelligence , meteorology
Why have so many societies adopted beads or other objects of adornment as currencies of trade? The question opens up a series of other questions about the nature of exchange, visibility and invisibility, and the relation of exchange both to conceptions of the human person and ways of exercising power over others.