Despite the pervasiveness of barter across societies, this mode of transaction has largely escaped the anthropologists gaze. Drawing on data from fairs in the Argentinean Andes, this book addresses a local modality of barter known as cambio. Bringing out its embeddedness within religious celebrations, it argues that cambio is practiced as a sacrifice to catholic figures and local ancestors, thereby challenging a widespread view of barter as a non-monetary form of commodity exchange. This ethnography of Andean barter considers processes of value creation, both economic and subjective, to further our understanding of how social groups create themselves through economic exchanges.

Olivia Angé is Associate Professor in Economic Anthropology at the Université libre de Bruxelles. She specializes in the study of material circulation, agriculture, and value creation in the Andes. Since 2005, she has conducted extensive fieldwork on barter fairs in the Argentinean cordillera. She is the co-author (with David Berliner) ofAnthropology and Nostalgia (Berghahn, 2014).

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements

Foreword to the Paperback Edition
James G. Carrier

Introduction

Chapter 1. Household Economy in an Argentinean Highland Village
Chapter 2. Historical Perspectives on Andean Fairs
Chapter 3. The Fair: A Religious Gathering of People and Goods
Chapter 4. Modalities of Transations at Fairs
Chapter 5. Barter and the Making of Society

Conclusion

References
Index