Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

CiteULike is a free service for managing and discovering scholarly references - click here to get started.

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Anthropological Theory
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Newell, S.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Estranged belongings

A moral economy of theft in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire

Sasha Newell

University of Illinois, USA

Arguing that ethnographies of cities must do more than highlight their fluid, boundless nature, this article seeks forms of social order produced in tension with forces of dissolution. I argue that even in the society of thieves I worked with in Abidjan, theft was ruled by relationships of exchange and obligation and social relationships were prioritized over financial gain. I discovered a tenuous moral community regulating the arbitration of justice in cases of social crisis, a process built upon the tracing of social networks and the determination of who really ‘belongs’. Using my own experience of being robbed and its social aftershocks as an example, I trace the processes through which social networks constrain the interpretation of an event, while at the same time redefining their identities (as group and individual) through this interaction. The juncture of stranger and community is the axis through which such negotiations are carried out.

Key Words: Abidjan • Côte d'Ivoire • exchange • moral economy • social networks • stranger • theft • urban

Anthropological Theory, Vol. 6, No. 2, 179-203 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/1463499606065034
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Br J CriminolHome page
S. Karstedt and S. Farrall
The Moral Economy of Everyday Crime: Markets, Consumers and Citizens
Br. J. Criminol., November 1, 2006; 46(6): 1011 - 1036.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]