Book contents
- Consumption, Status, and Sustainability
- New Directions In Sustainability And Society
- Consumption, Status, and Sustainability
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- 1 Standing Out, Fitting In, and the Consumption of the World
- Part I Status Competition and Hierarchy in Human Societies
- Part II Variability in Status Consumption
- Part III Continuity and Discontinuity
- 6 The Never-Ending Feast Redux
- 7 The Status of Archaeological Knowledge in the Study of Status
- 8 Signs of Power and the Power of Signs
- 9 Status, Consumption, and Intersectionality in Sustainability Research
- Part IV Bending the Curve
- Index
- References
8 - Signs of Power and the Power of Signs
Semiotics, Materiality, and the Political Economy of Status and Consumption
from Part III - Continuity and Discontinuity
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 July 2021
By
Book contents
- Consumption, Status, and Sustainability
- New Directions In Sustainability And Society
- Consumption, Status, and Sustainability
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- 1 Standing Out, Fitting In, and the Consumption of the World
- Part I Status Competition and Hierarchy in Human Societies
- Part II Variability in Status Consumption
- Part III Continuity and Discontinuity
- 6 The Never-Ending Feast Redux
- 7 The Status of Archaeological Knowledge in the Study of Status
- 8 Signs of Power and the Power of Signs
- 9 Status, Consumption, and Intersectionality in Sustainability Research
- Part IV Bending the Curve
- Index
- References
Summary
This chapter uses ethnohistorical information on prehispanic Andean kingdoms to illuminate how semiotic and material aspects of political economy are intertwined in premodern and modern approaches to various kinds of signs of social status. It argues that both anthropologists and mainstream economists tend to focus on semiotic aspects of human societies while largely ignoring their material conditions and repercussions, which are fundamental to grasping the role of identity and consumption in aggravating global inequalities and unsustainability.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Consumption, Status, and SustainabilityEcological and Anthropological Perspectives, pp. 193 - 221Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021
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