In this Book
- The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America
- Book
- 2010
- Published by: The University of North Carolina Press
summary
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.
Table of Contents
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- PART I: Fetishism: The Master Trope
- 2 The Devil and Commodity Fetishism
- pp. 13-38
- PART II: The Plantations of the Cauca Valley, Colombia
- 4 Owners and Fences
- pp. 70-92
- 6 Pollution, Contradiction, and Salvation
- pp. 112-125
- PART III: The Bolivian Tin Mines
- 8 The Devil in the Mines
- pp. 143-154
- 9 The Worship of Nature
- pp. 155-168
- 10 The Problem of Evil
- pp. 169-181
- 11 The Iconography of Nature and Conquest
- pp. 182-198
- 13 Peasant Rites of Production
- pp. 214-222
- Conclusion
- pp. 229-234
- Bibliography
- pp. 267-288
Additional Information
ISBN
9781469604237
Related ISBN(s)
9780807871331, 9780807898413
MARC Record
OCLC
966766042
Pages
320
Launched on MUSE
2017-01-01
Language
English
Open Access
No