Full Description
Why do people single out gold, sapphires, diamonds, and other minerals as particularly "precious"? What makes precious minerals "precious"? Drawing from ethnographic and cross-cultural research, this collection of anthropological essays and case studies answers these questions by exploring humans' multifaceted relationships with the minerals they deem "precious."
The Anthropology of Precious Minerals addresses the entanglement of humans and minerals, with a particular focus on the practices of scrappers, miners, and hunters as they work to extract value. The editors draw from history, archaeology, and ethnography, and remind us that "preciousness" must always be understood in relation to complex cultural, political-economic, and semiotic systems of value.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Engaging Precious Minerals
Andrew Walsh, Elizabeth Ferry, and Annabel Vallard
Part One: Engaging Mineral Sources
Introduction to Part One: Scrappers, Miners, and Hunters
Susan D. Gillespie
1. "Check Out That Gold-Plated Board!" Scrapping Cellphones and Electronics in North America
Joshua A. Bell
2. What Is "Artisanal" about "Artisanal Mining"? Reflections from Madagascar's Sapphire Trade
Andrew Walsh
3. The Value and Social Lives of Alpine Crystals
Gilles Raveneau
Part Two: Mineral Connections
Introduction to Part Two: Making Preciousness: Distinction and Refraction
Elizabeth Ferry
4. When Stones Become Gems: Valuations of Minerals in Thailand
Annabel Vallard
5. Transparent Minerals and Opaque Diamond Sources
Filipe Calvão
6. Gold, Ontological Difference, and Object Agency
Les W. Field
Afterword: Facets of Preciousness
Andrew Walsh, Elizabeth Ferry, and Annabel Vallard
Contributors
Index
