Embodying Exchange: Materiality, Morality and Global Commodity Chains in Andean Commerce

Addressing the infrastructural, social and legal complexities of a global commodity chain, this book uses an ethnographic analysis of the encounter between multinational corporations and popular traders in the Bolivian Andes. It offers a situated account of the everyday work of chain (un)making, and practices of translation, accommodation and contention. It highlights traders' collective action, understanding of economic concepts and regulatory principles, and traces the circulation of goods and money beyond market exchange. All in all, it aims to comprehend the reproduction of the native trading system amid global connections, and to humanize our understanding of the economy by grounding it in everyday life, bottom-up socio-material infrastructures and morality.

Author: Juliane Müller
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Published: 02/02/2024
Pages: 274
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.07lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.56d
ISBN: 9781805392637

About the Author

Juliane Müller is Professor of Social Anthropology (Serra Húnter Programme) at the University of Barcelona. This is her fourth monograph, the first in English.