Introduction: Theorizing Value in Practice
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Published:March 2024
The introduction presents anthropological theories of value and exchange from Karl Marx, Marcel Mauss, and more recent authors such as David Graeber and Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing and considers their relevance to the study of cultural production and consumption, especially with respect to music. The introduction also discusses value theory in ethnomusicology as it appears in David McAllester's classic Enemy Way Music (1954), which proved to be a theoretical road not taken. The introduction reflects on how focusing on the social life of value can help us better understand the motivations and practices of social actors in cultural production and consumption. This chapter also brings together anthropological value theory and Bourdieusian practice theory as a way of theorizing how social actors conceive of, and act on, conceptions of value.