Category Archives: Modes of Production
Joe Trapido: Epochs and continents: Potlatch, articulation, and violence in the Congo
This post is part of the Modes of Production feature moderated and edited by Patrick Neveling and Joe Trapido. From the sixteenth century onward, European trading networks grew ever more extensive. In some places, they displaced or directly subjugated the indigenous population early on. In others, merchants entered trading relationships with locals. In some parts […]
Jan Newberry: Restating the case: The social reproduction of care labor
Ever felt like the best conversation at the party is happening in the next room? When I did my field research in an urban neighborhood in Java some twenty years ago, it was at a time when we were “bringing the state back in” (Evans et al. 1985). I was deeply influenced by Philip Abrams’s […]
Sandy Smith-Nonini: Petrodollar financialization, the state, and fictive production
This article argues that the oil price shocks of the 1970s triggered a wave of global financialization led by Western banks and the US State that disconnected actual production from social reproduction in hundreds of indebted countries after 1982. It draws on a case study of Citibank lending in Mexico, the first country (of dozens) […]
Samuel W. Rose: Marxism and mode of production in the anthropology of native North America
This contribution elaborates on the relevance of the concept of mode of production in understanding contemporary North American indigenous populations. While examination of Native American peoples played a crucial role in early Marxist thought, Marxist theory has never been popular in examinations of North American Indians and has even been rejected by many indigenous intellectuals […]
Rachel Smith: The “hidden abodes” of temporary migration programs
Organizations such as the World Bank have repeated what has been called the “migration development mantra.” In this, remittances appear as a panacea—or “wonder drug” (Green 2015)—for economic development, while in real world interactions “social remittances” import liberal ideals such as “work ethic,” “financial literacy,” and democracy. Thus, this “mantra” reflects a neoliberal revival of […]
Patrick Neveling & Joe Trapido: Modes of production: Try again, fail better?
The mode of production (MoP) was an important term in the Marxist anthropology of the 1970s. Its origins can be traced to the diverse uses of the words by Marx himself, to elaborations on this by Louis Althusser and Étienne Balibar (for an excellent overview, see Resch 1992), and to contributions from various French Africanist […]