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Among the Wola people of Papua New Guinea, using the term “economy” is problematic. Distribution is unnecessary; the producers of everyday needs are the consumers: produce goes largely “from land to mouth”—with no implication that resources are scarce. Yet transactions featuring valuable things—which are scarce—are a prominent aspect of life, where sociopolitical exchange figures prominently. The relationship—or rather the disconnection—between these two domains is central to understanding the fiercely egalitarian political-economy. In this investigation of a Highland New Guinea agricultural “economy” and acephalous political order the text interrogates the relevance of key economic ideas in noncapitalist contexts and challenges anthropological shibboleths such as the “gift.” Furthermore, it makes a reactionary-cum-innovative contribution to research methods and analysis, drawing on advances in information technology to manage large data sets.

This interdisciplinary book is about land, belonging, and the mortgage—and how people of different cultural backgrounds understand them in Africa. Drawing on years of ethnographic observation, this book discusses how people in Africa's interior feel about their attachment to family, to clan land, and to ancestral graves on the land. It goes on to explain why systems of property, finance, and mortgaging imposed by outsiders threaten Africa's rural people. The book looks briefly at European and North American theories on private property and the mortgage, and then shows how these theories have played out as attempted economic reforms in Africa. They affect not just personal ownership and possession, it suggests, but also the complex relationships that add up to civil order and episodic disorder over a longer history. Focusing particular attention on the Luo people of Kenya, the book challenges assumptions about rural economic development and calls for a broader understanding of local realities in Africa and beyond.

Sweeping changes in welfare programs since 1996 have transformed the way America cares for its poor. Today, for every dollar spent on cash welfare payments, some twenty dollars are spent on service programs targeted at the working poor—job training, adult education, child care, emergency assistance, mental health care, and other social services. This book examines the current system in the United States and the crucial role that geography plays in the system's ability to offer help. Drawing on unique survey data from almost 1,500 faith-based and secular service organizations in three cities, the book examines which agencies are most accessible to poor populations and looks at the profound impact of unstable funding on these agencies' assistance programs. The book argues that the new system has become less equitable and reliable, and it concludes with practical policy recommendations that address some of the more pressing issues in improving the safety net.