Beyond the New Economic Anthropology: A Thematic Introduction

Abstract

In 1978 a group of nine scholars published a volume entitled The New Economic Anthropology which enjoyed some success as a summation of many of the trends within the sub-discipline up to that time, and as a statement of alternative approaches which moved away from the functionalism and micro-sociology approach of much conventional anthropology towards a holistic, economically-informed and even world-system viewpoint. At that time the particular jumping-off point was the debate with and response to French neo-Marxist economic anthropology. With hindsight a more balanced view of the significance of that debate is now possible. On the positive side, the French thinkers reintroduced the economy into social and cultural anthropology in a fresh way that transcended the theoretical sterility of the old ‘formalist—substantivist’ controversy. In so doing it became possible to link economic anthropology with theoretical work in the fields of structuralism, dependency, class analysis, underdevelopment and political economy, which in turn suggested a whole new range of practical applications. In these respects, it is not too much of an exaggeration to say that something of a revolution occurred in economic anthropology in the 1970s. Our 1978 volume encapsulated these trends and gave them expression in an English Language format and within the broad traditions of Anglo-American socio-cultural anthropology.KeywordsPolitical EconomyCultural AnalysisEconomic AnthropologyThematic IntroductionFrench ThinkerThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.