2018, Rupien in der Dollar-Zone: Geld als Prozess und Medium gesellschaftlicher Teilhabe. Eine Ethnographie (Badaga, Nilgiris District, Indien). Lit: Münster. Reihe: Indus. Ethnologische Südasien-Studien, Band 18.

Proud to anounce this! Published in German, “Rupien in der Dollar-Zone” is my first monograph. It is based on long term fieldwork among Badagas in the South Indian Nilgiri Hills (in particular the so-called Dollar-Zone). Writing this book, one of the main ideas was to take money as a truly “total social fact” (Marcel Mauss). Consequently I tried to describe the region of the Nilgiris and some of its peoples almost solely based on the particularities of their monetary history, monetary culture and monetary circuits. I think it worked out nicely as it became – in the strict sense of the term – an ethnography of money (i.e. of what I call “local money”).

This being said, the book can still be regarded in many respects as a village- and community-based ethnography. Through the lens of money it delves deeply into essentials such as kinship, love and alliance, ritual, foundation mythology, ancestor worship and settlement-patterns and of course it explores their relevance with regard to economy, local tea-industry, financial landscapes, education, labor migration and an omnipresent “tradition of accepting change”.

I’ll soon post a lenghty summary in English…