FETISHISM AND HAU

Abstract

This essay uses Marx’s concept of commodity fetishism and Mauss’s description of the hau as the spirit that connects the giver to the gift to examine notions of production, value, and collectivity in the Santa Fe silver mining Cooperative in Guanajuato, Mexico. This case allows us to look at how fetishism on the one hand, and “hauism” on the other, can work together to form a hybrid form of value wherein silver participates in both commodified and giftlike processes. More broadly, it helps us to examine the relationship between the production of value and the production and legitimation of social groups.

Citation

Emma Ferry, E. (2003), "FETISHISM AND HAU", Dannhaeuser, N. and Werner, C. (Ed.) Anthropological Perspectives on Economic Development and Integration (Research in Economic Anthropology, Vol. 22), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 261-281. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0190-1281(03)22009-6