The general theme of this study is an old one in economic anthropology. On the abstract end it involves, first, the degree of social content of individual transactions and, second, how economic processes relate to social structure. More specifically, the theme relates to matters such as the need for trust resulting in personalized systems of economic transactions, and how institutions shape economic arrangements. the social content and consequences of economic relations, while parts three and four address particular institutions, the household and agrarian relations. The volume ends in part...

The collection of original contributions in this volume of "Research in Economic Anthropology" addresses two recurrent themes in economic anthropology. These are the process of economic development and the basis on which economic integration takes place. The development theme is divided between papers that are concerned with the social and demographic impact of development, and those that examine the recent post-socialist transition. The integration theme is represented by articles that examine the symbolic foundations of economic integration, and by contributions that focus on the moral...

As a field, anthropology brings an explicit evolutionary approach to the study of human behavior. Each of anthropology's four main subfields - sociocultural, biological, archaeology, and linguistic anthropology--acknowledges that Homo sapiens has a long evolutionary history that must be acknowledged if one is to know what it means to be a human being (What is Anthropology?). The papers in this volume embody the view of anthropology explicit in the above statement. Behavioral ecology explains human behavior through the application of evolutionary theory in ecological context. It focuses on how...