Labor in Cross-Cultural Perspective: (Society for Economic Anthropology Monograph Series)

This excellent new volume in the series from the Society for Economic Anthropology focuses on the role of labor in contrasting world economies. The contributors offer a diverse collection of case studies, illustrating labor processes in a wide range of contexts in both western and nonwestern societies. The volume presents a detailed portrait of how the mobilization of labor changes dramatically with variations in social, political and economic conditions, as well as location and time period, reaffirming the unique contribution of anthropology to economic research. Individual sections include discussions on household labor, firms and corporations, and state and transnational conditions. This book will be a valuable resource for scholars, students and interested readers of international economics, anthropology, development issues, labor studies and sociology.

Table of Contents:
Part 1 Preface Part 2 Introduction 3 1 Sewer Socialism and Labor: The Pragmatics of Running a Good City 3 2 Political-Economic Change, Cultural Traditions, and Household Organization in Rural Mali 4 PART I: HOUSEHOLDS 6 3 Labor Discipline, Debt and Effort in a Philippine Fishing Community 7 5 Baragining Wages and Controlling Performance: Harvest Labor in Coffee and Citrus 7 4 ¿Ayuda or Work? Labor History of Female Heads of Household from Oaxaca, Mexico 8 6 We're to Stand Side by Side: Household Production and Women's Work in Rural Mining Communities 8 PART II: FIRMS AND CORPORATE ENTITIES 9 7 The Emergence of Worker Cooperatives in Japan among Middle-Aged Middle-Class Housewives in the Late Twentieth Century 12 8 Proletarianization of Professional Work and Changed Workplace Relationships 12 9 Of Corvee and Slavery: Historical Intricacies of the Division of Labor and State Power in Northern Thailand 13 PART III: STATES: PREMODERN TO TRANSNATIONAL 13 10 Hilltowns and Valley Fields: Great Transformations, Labor, and Long-Term History in Ancient Oaxaca 14 11 A Political Economy from Increasing Marginal Returns to Labor: An Example from Viking Age Iceland 16 13 Crossing the Border From Jalisco, Mexico: Network-Mediated Entry into Micro-Labor Enclaves 17 12 Immigrant Labor in the New United States Economy: Anthropological Notes 19 14 Volunteer Labor: "Adding Value" to Local Culture

About the Author :
E. Paul Durrenberger is professor of Anthropology at Pennsylvania State University. He received a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1971. He has served on the executive board of the American Anthropological Association, and as president of Culture and Agriculture, the Society for Economic Anthropology, and the Council of Thai Studies. He has done ethnographic fieldwork in highland and lowland Southeast Asia, Iceland, Mississippi, Alabama, Iowa, and Chicago, Illinois. His most recent publications include Pigs, Profits and Rural Communities (1998) and with Tom King, State and Community in Fisheries Management: Power Policy and Practice (2000). Judith Mart' is professor of anthropology at California State University, Northridge. She serves as Secretary-Treasurer and Editorial Board member of the Society for Economic Anthropology.

Review :
One of the key strengths of the book is the strong empirical thread that runs through it. Another is that the contributors present strong and well-reasoned arguments for their respective positions. Finally, the book is strengthened by the fact that the contributors, while raising important questions about mainstream economies, so not sing from the same page in the hymn book. This makes for the presentation of an engaging set of views on labor in cross-cultural perspective that is sure to promote considerable discussion in the field and will push the state of knowledge in economic anthropology a good distance from where it has been in the past decade.