This groundbreaking book addresses issues of the keenest interest to anthropologists, specialists on Africa, and those concerned with international aid and development. Drawing on extensive research among the Luo people in western Kenya and abroad over many years, Parker Shipton provides an insightful general ethnography. In particular, he focuses closely on nonmonetary forms of exchange and entrustment, moving beyond anthropology's traditional understanding of gifts, loans, and reciprocity. He proposes a new view of the social and symbolic dimensions of economy over the full life course,...