经济、生态人类学与消费文化研究

作者运用他在伯利兹的田野工作的实例来揭示消费与消费文化研究在经济与生态人类学研究中的基础作用。作者在伯利兹的凯克奇人中发现一种生计经济与商品经济混合并且交替出现的现象,并指出文化生态学与政治经济学在解释这种现象时的不足之处,认为要把当地个案放到更广的历史和政治经济框架内去理解,看到当地人在选择生计方式和消费水平方面的主观能动性,并考虑到全球化背景下不同地方在消费上的不平等关系及带来的环境问题。

Economic and Ecological Anthropology and the Study of Consumer Culture

The author, by using his case studied in Belize, illustrates that research of consumption and consumer culture are a fundamental part of economic and ecological anthropology. He found in the Kekchi Mayan farmers of Belize a dynamic mix of subsistence and commercial production, and a number of boom and bust cycles of capitalist development. All these facts cannot be explained in a traditional homeostatic model. He thus argues that economic and ecological anthropologists should understand the local case within a broader historical, political and economic framework, consider how the local people choose their way of subsistence and consumption positively, show regard to the inequity of different regions under the global background and the environmental problems it has brought about.