1. Money

Question 1

What 2 ethnographies are associated with the topic of Money?

Answer 1

1. Day, S. (2007). ‘The Uses of Money,’ in On the Game. (London)
2. Kwon, H. (2007). ‘The Dollarization of Vietnamese Ghost Money.’

Question 2

What does Day (2007)’s ethnography say about Money?

Answer 2

On the Game is an ethnographic account of prostitutes and prostitution. Sophie Day has followed the lives of individual women over fifteen years.

• The period in 1980s and 1990s was one of substantial change within the sex industry.
• How do you convert money into the legal economy?
• Spheres of Public and Private - makes money difficult for sex workers
• “Nature of money mirrors the nature of prostitution”
• “Protection money seen as a form of tax to enable one to work in peace”
• “Prostitution is like gambling - its an addiction”
• “The inability to legitimise their earnings forces them to spend their money almost immediately”

Question 3

Why are some people troubled by the exchange of Money for sex?

Answer 3

• money is alienable whereas intimacy is personable
• both products of differents spheres - public/private
• sex becomes an object
• the spheres become blurred and ill-defined

Question 4

What does it mean to say that Money is alienable?

Answer 4

• Impersonal - Transfers ownership / impartiality
• Informal - [Cash] Carries no personal information

NOTE: money could be considered inalienable if it becomes a collectors item (e.g. no longer legal tender) or for the acquisition of wealth

Question 5

What does Kwon (2007)’s ethnography say about Money?

Answer 5

The Dollarization of Vietnamese Ghost Money is about offering money to gods, ancestors, and ghosts is an increasingly important part of everyday life in Vietnam. When it concerns the traces of a violent war, this custom is believed to help the spirits of the dead become liberated from their grievous histories.

• Money used in ritual - creating ties between living and the dead.
• Not just part of alienable world of commodity exchange.
• “Money is as important for the dead as it is for the living”
• “Revival of ancestor worship”
• “The dead should receive the things they were familiar with during their lifetime.”
• “Gods received gold, ancestors silver, and the rest coin money or no money”

Question 6

Can any medium of exchange be considered Money?

Answer 6

• Localised exchange - ‘babysitting circle’
• Shells seen as a form of money - but is it fair when supply comes from unregulated sources e.g. beach!
• Recognised value to ensure uniformity

Example: “Timebank” run by a central broker or LETTS trading of services in a neighbourhood but token based

Question 7

What does anthropologist Keith Hart say about Money?

Answer 7

Origins (the myth) - Hart 2005

• Ancestors started swapping things
• Objects became valued as tokens
• Money became the supreme barter item

However it doesn’t:

• Money does not originate in barter nor undermine traditional culture

Money has two sides:

• Head - Ruler, state authority (State)
• Tails - Quanity, numerical value (Market)
• “Money has two sides, being at once a token of authority (states) and a token of value (markets).”

Question 8

What is Money?

Answer 8

A promise of a given value that is given in exchange of receiving a commodity or service considered of equal value.