“What makes this book interesting is that it does not focus on Chinese consumers, but rather on foreign intermediaries ... It is a remarkable contribution to economic anthropology that highlights the confrontation between cultural specificities in commercial practices.” • Marc Abélès, Director of CNRS research.
Pedagogies of Value explores how China is reshaping global hierarchies of worth. Through ethnographic research among marketers, consultants, and brokers who promote foreign goods in Shanghai, Beijing, and beyond, this book investigates how value is taught, contested, and transformed in everyday encounters. From luxury brands and consumer ethnography to real estate, wine, and organic food, the book reveals how foreign intermediaries attempt to ‘educate’ Chinese consumers, only to confront shifting power dynamics that challenge Western authority. Blending vivid narratives with sharp analysis, this study argues that China has become a central arena for reimagining the very meaning of value.
Máximo Badaró is Researcher at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council and Professor of Social Anthropology at the Universidad Nacional de San Martín where he is the director of the Global China Studies Program. He specializes in the anthropology of China and Latin America-China relations. His most recent publication is China in Argentina: Ethnographies of a Global Expansion (Springer Nature, 2022).
BISAC: SOC002010 SOCIAL SCIENCE/Anthropology/Cultural & Social; BUS043000 BUSINESS & ECONOMICS/Marketing/General; BUS058000 BUSINESS & ECONOMICS/Sales & Selling
