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 in many respects a classic village-based ethnography of the Badaga people in the South Indian Nilgiri Hills (in particular the so-called Dollar-Zone). However, what the book claims to explore in the first place is money as a “total social fact” (Marcel Mauss). Therefore it describes the region and history of the Nilgiris as well as the culture and society of Badagas almost solely by looking at the particularities of local monetary flows, powers, and memories.

Through the lens of money “Rupees in the Dollar-Zone” 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 the economy, too: the ups and downs of the local tea-industry; the true fundaments, functions, values and technologies of local financial landscapes; the role of education and labor migration; the staged performance of traditional monetary circuits along with an omnipresent “tradition of accepting change” and of “running after the money”.