andie nachgeborenen, in an attachment that was "nested" (grrrr!) forwards an:
---- Original Message ---- From: Ravi Malhotra To: jkschw1 at yahoo.com ; bleiter at mail.law.utexas.edu Sent: Sunday, May 08, 2005 10:09 PM Subject: David Graeber at Yale Anthropology
> I don't know the details but my understanding is anti-globalization
> activist and Yale
> anthropologist David Graeber may be fired from his position and my
> understanding is this
> is related to his political activism and anarchist beliefs. There is
> an online petition
> to defend him. Perhaps if you find out more, you could do whatever
> you can in your
> various environments.
>
> Ravi
I like this guy... <...> Traditionally, anthropologists accept Karl Marx's definition of production as the transformation of nature through human activity.
Yale anthropologist David Graeber has pointed out a tendancy in the literature to define consumption as "any activity that involves the purchase, use or enjoyment of any manufactured or agricultural product for any purpose other than the production or exchange of new commodities."
Graeber has recently argued against this idea of consumption, insofar as it undergirds an image of "society as a gigantic engine of production and destruction in which the only significant human activity is either manufacturing things, or engaging in acts of ceremonial destruction so as to make way for more: a vision which in fact sidelines most things that real people actually do and insofar as it is translated into actual economic behavior, is obviously unsustainable." <...>
Leigh www.leighm.net