Chris Gregory

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Christopher A. Gregory is an Australian economic anthropologist. He is based at Australian National University (ANU) [1] in Canberra, and has also taught at University of Manchester- where he was made Professor of Political and Economic Anthropology. [2] He studied Economics at University of New South Wales and ANU before pursuing anthropology, following a period in Papua New Guinea. [3] His main research has been in Papua New Guinea and Bastar District, central India, and he also co-authored a research methods manual for economic anthropology, 'Observing the Economy', with Jon Altman.

Contents

Papua New Guinea research: Gifts and Commodities (1982)

Gregory first grew interested in anthropology whilst resident in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea from 1973 to 1975. Whilst teaching economics at University of Papua New Guinea, Gregory found orthodox economic theory lacking in explanatory power for the different kinds of economic action he observed as he travelled the country. He began to read ethnographic literature on Papua New Guinea, and Marilyn Strathern's ethnography of rural migrants in Port Moresby, No Money on Our Skins, was an influence. [4] He later familiarized himself with key works in anthropology from authors such as Marcel Mauss and Claude Levi-Strauss. [5] Gregory's casual empirical observations during this period was to inspire his research at University of Cambridge from 1976 to 1981. [5] His doctoral work was supervised by John Eatwell, and his thesis was examined by Maurice Godelier and Bertram Schefold. [5] His thesis was developed into his first major book, Gifts and Commodities, during a Research Fellowship at Clare Hall, Cambridge. [5]

Gregory's book, Gifts and Commodities, is considered a major intervention in economic anthropology, and the anthropology of Melanesia. [6] [7] [8] Gregory developed a synthesis of classical political economists (such as Quesnay, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and predominantly Karl Marx), which he found more useful than the prevailing economic theory, and classical anthropological theory (from the likes of Lewis Henry Morgan, Claude Levi-Strauss, and especially Marcel Mauss) in order to draw a series of contrasts between the logics of commodity and gift exchange. The book is in two parts: the first half develops the concepts and distinctions surrounding gift and commodity exchange, and the second half draws on ethnographic and empirical evidence to explain the economy in colonial Papua New Guinea.

Whilst some critics accused Gregory of making overdrawn binary contrast between industrialized countries and Papua New Guinea, Gregory answered his critics in his later book Savage Money, and in his preface to the second edition, explaining the book was intended precisely as an affirmation of the coexistence of gifts and commodities in late colonial Papua New Guinea (PNG), and particularly the paradoxical efflorescence of gift exchange during the colonial period. [5] [4] Indeed, in his preface to the first edition of the book, Gregory had written:

The colonial PNG economy presents the analyst with a very complex mixture of indigenous and imposed economic forms which changes over time and varies from place to place. It is only by pulling the complex whole apart, examining the workings of its parts as if in a vacuum, and reassembling the parts in the concrete historical situation that we can have any hope of understanding colonial PNG. [5]

The book was aimed as a contribution to the formalist/substantivist debate in anthropology. It was reissued by HAU Books in 2015. [5] In her foreword to the second edition, Marilyn Strathern writes that Gregory's model of exchange relations was to have a major influence on her own work, and a major impact in anthropology more generally.

India research: Savage Money (1997)

In early 1980s, Gregory began to conduct long-term research in the market town of Kondagaon, in Bastar District, central India, after being introduced to the area in 1981 by Alfred Gell and his wife Simeran, as part of Alfred's project on rural markets. [4] He then had a two year fellowship and London School of Economics in 1982-1983, during which time he returned to India for 13 months and learned Hindi. [4] One of his mentors from Cambridge, Polly Hill, talked much to him about agrarian relations in India, as well as West Africa. After taking up a teaching position at ANU, Gregory made two return visits to India in 1985–86 (when he met with merchants in Rajasthan) and 1989– 90.

This research culminated in the book, Savage Money (1997). In his preface, Gregory says it took him a long time to publish the book, as he immersed himself in the published literature on Indian society, and because of teaching pressures. The Subaltern Studies approach that emerged in 1980s, and particularly the work of Ranajit Guha, was a major influence. Inspired by the Subaltern school, Gregory places the theme of 'alternate values' and rival value systems at the centre in order to interrogate the politics as well as the economics of commodity exchange, and the implications for an anthropologically informed theory of value. Gregory draws to a greater extent on his empirical fieldwork than in Gifts and Commodities. The research is based on mercantile families and marketing, focussing on everyday farming and mercantile values in the context of inter-family relationships. This book also marks a shift in Gregory's conceptual focus from gifts and commodities to commodities and goods (defined as inalienable keepsakes, including land).

The title, 'Savage Money' was inspired by a comment by John Harvey, who -years before- had suggested it would be a good title for a book. [4] Gregory deploys the term not to refer to ideas of 'primitive money' that had preoccupied many economic anthropologists of the past, but to the changes in the global economy after 1971, [9] and particularly the "free market anarchism" which dominated after Nixon's government unpegged the dollar from the gold standard. Gregory's analysis, together with Michael Hudson's writings, inspired David Graeber's discussion of the present era in Chapter 12 his bestselling book "Debt: the first 5000 years". [10]

Since the publication of Savage Money, Gregory has published a large number of articles and papers on economic anthropology, and has continued to conduct research in India, particularly on the political economy and culture of rice-growing in central India as expressed in women's oral epics, kinship and marriage, and on land transactions.

Personal life

Chris Gregory is married to Judith Robinson, a diplomat who served for a time as Acting High Commissioner to Fiji, [11] and has two daughters.

Principal publications

Books

Related Research Articles

A gift economy or gift culture is a system of exchange where valuables are not sold, but rather given without an explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards. Social norms and customs govern giving a gift in a gift culture; although there is some expectation of reciprocity, gifts are not given in an explicit exchange of goods or services for money, or some other commodity or service. This contrasts with a barter economy or a market economy, where goods and services are primarily explicitly exchanged for value received.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bronisław Malinowski</span> Polish anthropologist and ethnographer (1884–1942)

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trobriand Islands</span> Papua New Guinea, Oceania

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Economic anthropology is a field that attempts to explain human economic behavior in its widest historic, geographic and cultural scope. It is an amalgamation of economics and anthropology. It is practiced by anthropologists and has a complex relationship with the discipline of economics, of which it is highly critical. Its origins as a sub-field of anthropology began with work by the Polish founder of anthropology Bronislaw Malinowski and the French Marcel Mauss on the nature of reciprocity as an alternative to market exchange. For the most part, studies in economic anthropology focus on exchange.

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The Moka is a highly ritualized system of exchange in the Mount Hagen area, Papua New Guinea, that has become emblematic of the anthropological concepts of "gift economy" and of "Big man" political system. Moka are reciprocal gifts of pigs through which social status is achieved. Moka refers specifically to the increment in the size of the gift; giving more brings greater prestige to the giver. However, reciprocal gift giving was confused by early anthropologists with profit-seeking, as the lending and borrowing of money at interest.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Development Policy Centre</span>

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Michelle Nayahamui Rooney has dual Papua New Guinean and Australian nationality. She is a research fellow at the Development Policy Centre of the Australian National University and publishes extensively on matters relating to Papua New Guinea (PNG) and the Pacific islands.

References

  1. ↑ Director (Research Services Division). "Dr Christopher Gregory". researchers.anu.edu.au. Archived from the original on 12 April 2018. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
  2. ↑ "The Domestic Moral Economy - School of Social Sciences - The University of Manchester". www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 12 April 2018. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
  3. ↑ Ingold, Tim (1994). Companion encyclopedia of anthropology. London: Routledge. ISBN   9780415021371. OCLC   51874027.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Gregory, C. A. (Chris) (1997). Savage money : the anthropology and politics of commodity exchange. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic. ISBN   9789057020926. OCLC   37918055.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Gregory, C. A. (Chris) (2015). Gifts and commodities. Strathern, Marilyn (Second ed.). Chicago, IL. ISBN   9780990505013. OCLC   891618291.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  6. ↑ Golub, Alex. "What you need to know about HAU Books". Archived from the original on 24 October 2016.
  7. ↑ "Gifts and Commodities- HAU Books". Archived from the original on 26 July 2018.
  8. ↑ Otto, Ton; Willerslev, Rane (1 March 2013). "Introduction: "Value as theory": Comparison, cultural critique, and guerilla ethnographic theory". HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory. 3 (1): 1–20. doi:10.14318/hau3.1.002. ISSN   2575-1433. S2CID   59935483.
  9. ↑ "Money: One Anthropologist's View – The Memory Bank". thememorybank.co.uk. Archived from the original on 14 December 2017. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
  10. ↑ Graeber, David (2011). Debt : the first 5,000 years . Brooklyn, N.Y.: Melville House. ISBN   9781933633862. OCLC   426794447.
  11. ↑ "Australian Envoy Marks White Ribbon Day with Launch of Handbook". Australian High Commission: Fiji. 25 November 2011. Archived from the original on 12 April 2018. Retrieved 27 July 2018.
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