ENGLISH

The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America

By Michael Taussig

Book information

Publisher
University of North Carolina Press
Year
2010
ISBN
0807871338, 978-0-8078-7133-1, 9780807898413, 0807898414, 9781469604237, 146960423X
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
16 MB (17217507 bytes)
Edition
2nd
Pages
296\315
Time added
2015-12-23 22:00:00
Economic development -- Social aspects -- Case stu

Description

In this classic book, Michael Taussig explores the social significance of the devil in the folklore of contemporary plantation workers and miners in South America. Grounding his analysis in Marxist theory, Taussig finds that the fetishization of evil, in the image of the devil, mediates the conflict between precapitalist and capitalist modes of objectifying the human condition. He links traditional narratives of the devil-pact, in which the soul is bartered for illusory or transitory power, with the way in which production in capitalist economies causes workers to become alienated from the commodities they produce. A new chapter for this anniversary edition features a discussion of Walter Benjamin and Georges Bataille that extends Taussig's ideas about the devil-pact metaphor.

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