Anthropology and Value

Abstract

Anthropological theories of value highlight the cultural processes responsible for value creation, re-creation, and transmission. This chapter provides an overview of the most crucial value theories in anthropology. First, It introduces early anthropological accounts of value, like Kluckhohn’s and Strodtbeck’s theory of value orientations, which was an attempt to provide a tool for cross-cultural comparison. The chapter also outlines the structuralist approach to value, specifically Dumont’s influential account, where values are part of a hierarchical meaning system. The chapter then introduces so-called action-oriented approaches to value (Munn, Turner, Graeber). Action-oriented accounts focus on how humans actively create and reproduce values in a cultural system of meaning into which value actions are embedded. Finally, the chapter also briefly considers anthropological ideas about value change.