Social Exchange
242 pages, 6 x 9
3 b&w images, 4 tables
Paperback
Release Date:16 Sep 2022
ISBN:9781978829626
Hardcover
Release Date:16 Sep 2022
ISBN:9781978829633
Social Exchange
Barter as Economic and Cultural Activism in Medellín, Colombia
Rutgers University Press
Money occupies a powerful place in our lives – it is a problem, a goal, and motivator, a measure of self-worth and national progress, and even an influence on how we relate to each other and to nature – but what happens when communities start to reinvent money and markets? Over the last twenty-five years, grassroots activists in Medellín, Colombia, have used barter markets and community currencies as one strategy to re-weave a social fabric shredded by violence and to establish an economy founded on respect and reciprocity rather than exploitation. In Social Exchange, Brian J. Burke provides a deep ethnographic investigation of this activism and its effects. This story draws us into the cultural and material effects of capitalism and narco-violence, while also helping us understand what new radical imaginations look like and how people bring them to life. The result is an intimate glimpse of urban life in Latin America, as well as a broader analysis of non-capitalist or post-capitalist possibility.
Brian Burke has produced a rich, wonderfully evocative and thickly described portrayal of the real economy through which millions of us make livelihoods and struggle, imperfectly, for something better. Latin America has often been inspirational to those of us in the neoliberalized North, and here you will find inspiration from a close observation of early experiments in developing economies where what matters is living well rather than endless growth.
With theoretical depth and accessible writing, Burke brings lucid ethnographic and historical context to an analysis of the possibilities and constraints on diverse economic experimentation, both as a mode of survival and of transformation in Medellin. Burke joins this ethnographic realism with a stance towards possibility; he details how barter networks interrupt capitalist logics and desires, rework space and place, shift social relations, and most importantly cultivate subjectivities at the level of everyday practice and engagement. This is an important book for anyone interested in understanding and advancing post-capitalist imaginings and practices.
Brian Burke has produced a rich, wonderfully evocative and thickly described portrayal of the real economy through which millions of us make livelihoods and struggle, imperfectly, for something better. Latin America has often been inspirational to those of us in the neoliberalized North, and here you will find inspiration from a close observation of early experiments in developing economies where what matters is living well rather than endless growth.
With theoretical depth and accessible writing, Burke brings lucid ethnographic and historical context to an analysis of the possibilities and constraints on diverse economic experimentation, both as a mode of survival and of transformation in Medellin. Burke joins this ethnographic realism with a stance towards possibility; he details how barter networks interrupt capitalist logics and desires, rework space and place, shift social relations, and most importantly cultivate subjectivities at the level of everyday practice and engagement. This is an important book for anyone interested in understanding and advancing post-capitalist imaginings and practices.
BRIAN J. BURKE is an associate professor at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. He is the co-editor of Cooperatives, Grassroots Development, and Social Change.
Preface
Introduction
1 Diverse Economies in the War System
2 The Birth of Barter
3 A Day at the Market: Barter Livelihoods, Ethics, and Pleasure
4 What Barter Stimulates: Economic and Social Impacts
5 “A Barter That Runs through Our Veins”: Culture, Power, and Subjectivity
6 Strategies for a New Economy: Bridges, Boundaries, Culture, and Economy
Conclusion: “Para que Cambiemos”
Acknowledgments
Notes
References
Index
