Polanyian meditations on economy and society: a review of ‘Market Society: The Great Transformation Today’

Abstract

When one considers anthropology’s recent encounter with ‘globalisation’ -- whether understood as a “totalizing” discourse (Tsing 2000), as the dialectical antinomy of localization, as expanding constellations of diasporas and transnational social spaces” (Basch, Glick-Schiller & Szanton 1994), or as webs of legal and illegal trade (Nordstrom 2007) -- it can be profitable to recall the precursors. By this I mean anthropologists who consistently brought a historical-theoretical concern with global processes to bear upon local ethnography, and vice versa. Those that are name-checked in this connection tend to include Marxian theorists such as Eric Wolf, Michael Taussig, Sidney Mintz, and Maurice Godelier, but another important figure was Karl Polanyi.