The Real Economy

This collection highlights a key metaphor in contemporary discourse about economy and society. The contributors explore how references to <i>reality </i>and the<i> real economy </i>are linked both to the utopias of collective well-being supported by real monies and good economies and the dystopias of financial bubbles and busts in which people's own lives crash along with the reality of their economies.<br>  <br> An ambitious anthropology of economy this volume questions how assemblages of vernacular and scientific realizations and enactments of the economy are linked to ideas of truth and moral value; how these multiple and shifting realities become present and entangle with historically and socially situated lives; and how the formal realizations of the concept of the real in the governance of economies engage with the experiential lives of ordinary people. Featuring essays from some of the world's most prominent economic anthropologists <i>The Real Economy</i> is a milestone collection in economic anthropology that crosses disciplinary boundaries and adds new life to social studies of the economy.