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Alf Hornborg

Alf Hornborg

Professor emeritus

Alf Hornborg

Fetishistic Causation

Author

  • Alf Hornborg

Summary, in English

In this lecture I argue that anthropology can grasp the cultural peculiarity of modernity by critically scrutinizing its foundational categories of “economy” and “technology” and its particular ways of detaching exchange and production from morality. Economic and technological developments in nineteenth-century Britain are interpreted as local manifestations of global processes of unequal exchange and accumulation. The so-called Industrial Revolution reconfigured both the material circumstances and the worldview of the people at its imperial core. This modern worldview continues to shape contemporary aspirations to deal with global inequalities and environmental change, but remains incapable of grasping the interfusion of social and natural aspects of economic and technological development. Its delineation of the categories of “economy” and “technology” is conducive to a specific modality of exploitation that can be understood as a modern form of magic, defined as contingent on the unacknowledged material efficacy of human beliefs.

Department/s

  • Human Ecology

Publishing year

2017-12-22

Language

English

Pages

89-103

Publication/Series

HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory

Volume

7

Issue

3

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

University of Cambridge * The Mongolia & Inner Asia Studies Unit

Topic

  • Human Geography

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 2049-1115