Marginal Gains

“A book of economic anthropology that is important for its original and incisive ideas, and also marvelously rich in the range and depth of ethnographic and historical detail which underpins the argument. This not only makes for fascinating reading, but also grounds the conceptual discussions in illuminating reality. . . . The idea of asymmetrical exchange as a fundamental feature recurring in African monetary practices, and the possibilities of gainful margin for exchange, are the underlying subjects of the inquiry. . . . In Africa, money has been a medium for a relational life rather than a goal for storing wealth, and a ramifying set of options exists for converting money earned in the market into assets for pursuing diverse and enduring forms of return or security. Status for the wealthy has come from their capacity to deal with people’s needs, made possible by their claims on goods which in turn derive from money. Conversionary transactions have been widely used to transform ephemeral income into more enduring relational assets. . . . This is a brilliant book. Its insights on economic transactions lead us to new investigations to advance our understanding of the interface between the popular economies of not only Atlantic Africa but, by extension, of other countries confronting the capitalist countries dominating the process of globalization.”

“Guyer restores Africa to the heart of economic anthropology, enlivening key themes of the discipline, enlarging its conceptual vocabulary, and charting its future course. . . . She writes against the portrayal of the turbulence of African life as a situation of impenetrable and unmanageable chaos. Guyer seeks to uncover the practices of daily life which respond to and order situations of crisis, often in surprising and subtle ways. Whether describing the distribution of petrol in Nigeria during periods of shortage, shopping in markets flooded with secondhand and counterfeit goods, or budgeting in the face of extreme economic uncertainty, Guyer deeply probes the semantics of structurally adjusted African modernity. . . . Guyer’s breadth and boldness of vision make this an important book.”

“A slim volume that bursts with originality and illuminating insights about matters anthropological and economic. . . . Central to Guyer’s reasoning is that economies of Atlantic Africa are neither wholly distinctive nor utterly subsumed by Western economic logic. They are enmeshed but not in a dualistic fashion.”