Capitalism and Transhumance: A Comparison of Three Pastoral Market Types in Europe (1950 - 2000)
Capitalism and Transhumance: A Comparison of Three Pastoral Market Types in Europe (1950 - 2000)

Summary/Abstract: This research is about herders and capitalism. It represents an attempt to assess the economic potential of peasant husbandry in terms of pastoral transhumance in contemporary Europe. The ethnography of herders in Central Romania, Northern Greece, and Southern France will be discussed here from the theoretical and methodological perspective of economic anthropology. While it would clearly be difficult to approach peasantry or any other social group in Europe today from outside the general framework of the market economy, it seems equally problematic to speak of capitalism among the herdsmen. As will be seen, this issue has already given birth to some controversial literature in the anthropology of pastoralism. At the same time, however, the debate centered on the emergence of the capitalist esprit and system of production and exchange does reach the peasant economy in general.

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