One of the most vibrant areas of inquiry in anthropology today surrounds questions of the commodification of human and natural life. In a world where cost-benefit analysis dominates economic and governmental decision-making, prices are routinely put on death and environmental devastation—but little thought is given to what those valuations mean, both to those being blithely commodified or to the society behind it.             Anthropologies of Value brings together a roster of stellar contributors to consider the question of the commodification of life through an anthropological lens. Explicitly questioning the validity of such commonplace binary oppositions as north/south, core/periphery, Western/non-Western, the collection aims to bridge disparate approaches and offer a new way forward for understanding, and combating, the rampant commodification of contemporary life.   ''This collection of ethnographically-informed essays from around the world turns the abstractions of globalisation theory upside down and provides new insights into the values that inform economic transactions in the world today. It is essential reading for anyone concerned with the value question in the 21st Century.'' ― Dr Chris Gregory, Australian National University Luis Fernando Angosto-Ferrández is a lecturer in anthropology and Latin American studies at the University of Sydney. He is the author of Venezuela Reframed and Democracy, Revolution, and Geopolitics in Latin America . Geir Henning Presterudstuen is a lecturer in social theory and anthropology at the University of Western Sydney.   Anthropologies of Value By Luis Fernando Angosto-Ferrández, Geir Henning Presterudstuen Pluto Press Copyright © 2016 Luis Fernando Angosto-Ferrández and Geir Henning Presterudstuen All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-7453-3663-3 Contents List of Figures, vii, Series Preface, viii, Acknowledgements, ix, The Value of Everything and the Price of Nothingness Luis Fernando Angosto-Ferrández, 1, PART I EMERGING VALUE IN THE 'GLOBAL SOUTH', 1 On the Capacity to Change the Structural Parameters of Value: The Sale of One Particular Cook Island Tivaivai Jane Horan, 31, 2 Value and the Art of Deception: Public Morality in a Papua New Guinean Ponzi Scheme John Cox, 51, 3 Asbin: A 'Has Been' of Papua New Guinea Highlands Gift Exchange? Olivia Barnett-Naghshineh, 75, 4 The Value of the Vanua: The Nexus of People and Land in Fiji's Market Economy Geir Henning Presterudstuen, 93, 5 Natural Value: Rent-capture and the Commodification of a Waterfall in Gran Sabana, Venezuela Luis Fernando Angosto-Ferrández, 112, 6 Capitalist Ventures or Solidarity Networks? Self-employment in Post-Soviet Cuba Marina Gold, 132, PART II TRIBULATING VALUES IN THE 'GLOBAL NORTH', 7 The Relative Value of Penguins Moira White, 155, 8 Quota Systems: Repositioning Value in New Zealand, Icelandic and Irish Fisheries Fiona McCormack, 175, 9 Distributions of Wealth, Distributions of Waste: Abject Capital and Accumulation by Disposal David Boarder Giles, 198, 10 'The University is Kind of an Impossible Place': Universities Towards and Against Capitalism Fern Thompsett, 219, Notes on Contributors, 243, Index, 245, CHAPTER 1 On the Capacity to Change the Structural Parameters of Value The Sale of One Particular Cook Island Tivaivai Jane Horan Introduction If, as the title of one of David Graeber's latest articles on value states, 'it is value that brings universes into being' (2013: 219), it takes a very skilled individual to coalesce expertise in value into what is tantamount to gain in a capitalist sense. The intertwining of economic value (as in gaining money) with so-called cultural value at the boundary of what Gudeman calls the realm of market and the realm of mutuality (2001, 2008, 2009) becomes a slippery, tricky process that has the potential to debase and undermine not only people, but significant valuables and cosmological universes as well. Or not. Because if the parameters of what is valued and how are expertly elaborated, the outcome can be a new version of the universe. Such capacity tends to be the reserve of only very specific individuals who can work with, manage, command even, the parameters of value as a structural reality, which is inevitably about versions of power (Graeber 2013: 226; cf. Turner 2006). This chapter is about one particular Cook Islands woman, Mama Vereara Maeva-Taripo, who has this capacity. The detail is about how Mama Vereara very publicly exchanged, for an unprecedented sum of money, one specific, special (cf. Kopytoff 1986) tivaivai taorei (unquilted quilt) that she had designed and made with help from her tivaivai group. Tivaivai are the paramount valuable in the Cook Islands ceremonial economy and are not meant to be sold, because of their capacity to express the core Cook Islands values of aro'a (love) and kinship. What this detail speaks to is how value not only brings universes