Barter and Social Regeneration in the Argentinean Andes

Despite the pervasiveness of barter across societies, this mode of transaction has largely escaped the anthropologist’s gaze. Drawing on data from fairs in the Argentinean Andes, this book unveils both barter’s regime of value and its related social performativity. It explores fairs’ embeddedness within religious celebration, arguing that barter is addressed as a sacrifice to catholic figures and local ancestors, and thus challenging a pervasive view of barter as solely a non-monetary form of commodity exchange. Issues of value, identity, and exchange are considered, furthering our understanding of how social groups create themselves through material circulation.

Reviews of Barter and Social Regeneration in the Argentinean Andes

"Olivia Ange has crafted an engaging, insightful, and timely work that constitutes an important contribution to Andean/Latin American Studies, economic and religious anthropology and the study of exchange. The author artfully weaves an edifying tapestry of the performativity of regional fairs among Kolla people of Argentina." * David Berliner, Universite Libre de Bruxelles