Stephen Gudeman, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota, has undertaken fieldwork in several countries of Latin America. During 2008-2012 he was co-director of the Economy and Ritual project at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle. Gudeman has published extensively in journals and written or edited eight books, the most recent of which are Economy's Tension (2008) and Economic Persuasions (2009). Chris Hann is a Founding Director of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology at Halle. He formerly taught anthropology at the Universities of Cambridge and Kent (Canterbury). Hann is co-author of Economic Anthropology. History, Ethnography, Critique (2011) and co-editor of Market and Society: The Great Transformation Today (2009).

• List of Illustrations Introduction: Ritual, Economy and the Institutions of the Base Stephen Gudeman and Chris Hann Chapter 1. Economy as Ritual: The Problems of Paying in Wine Jennifer Cash Chapter 2. Animals in the Kyrgyz Ritual Economy: Symbolic and Moral Dimensions of Economic Embedding Nathan Light Chapter 3. From Pig-Sticking to Festival: Changes in Pig-Sticking Practices in the Hungarian Countryside Bea Vidacs Chapter 4. Kurban: Shifting Economy and the Transformations of a Ritual Detelina Tocheva Chapter 5. The Trader's Wedding: Ritual Inflation and Money Gifts in Transylvania Monica Vasile Chapter 6. "We don't have work. We just grow a little tobacco": Household Economy and Ritual Effervescence in a Macedonian Town Miladina Monova Appendix: The "Economy and Ritual" Project and the Field Questionnaire Notes on Contributors Index

"This volume links two fields of anthropological inquiry that were central to the development of the discipline, but have rarely been considered together in recent decades: the study of ritual and of economic systems and rationalities ... It is a welcome and fresh contribution that has no direct equivalents currently in print." * Sonja Luehrmann, Simon Fraser University "[This book] makes an innovative contribution to the way we think about economic anthropology - rituals, celebrations, feasts, and the partly constructive ways that they are indelibly tied to economic practices." * Russell Zanca, Northeastern Illinois University