African art in transit
African art in transit is an absorbing account of the commodification and circulation of African objects in the international art market today. Based on extensive field research among art traders in Cote d'Ivoire, Christopher Steiner analyzes the role of the African middleman in linking those who produce and supply works of art in Africa with those who buy and collect so-called "primitive" art in Europe and America. Moving easily from ethnographic vignette to social
Print Book, English, 1994
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [England], 1994
History
xv, 220 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
9780521434478, 9780521457521, 0521434475, 0521457521
27338360
Introduction: the anthropology of African art in a transnational market
1. Commodity outlets and the classification of goods
2. The division of labor and the management of capital
3. An economy of words: bargaining and the social production of value
4. The political economy of ethnicity in a plural market
5. The quest for authenticity and the invention of African art6. Cultural brokerage and the mediation of knowledge
Conclusion: African art and the discourses of value
Revision of the author's thesis (doctoral)--Harvard University, 1990