Ebook: Bitter Money: Cultural Economy and Some African Meaning of Forbidden Commodities

This book is about some East African farmers, in a partly monetized economy and a partly Christianized religious environment, who — have decided that there are two kinds of money, one good and one evil. Among the Kenya Luo, the classification of cash reflects important conceptual and social tensions, stemming partly from disjunctions between new kinds of private accumulation and other, indigenous forms of economic activity. Luo associate some new forms of ex-change with spiritual forces, lately with the devil of Christian dogma. Money from forbidden transactions is conceived of as barren, and ultimately useless to its owner. But money is ritually transformable be-tween good and evil states.