Goldsmiths - University of London

Dr David Graeber MA PhD

Research interests

David Graeber's original research project focused on relations between former nobles and former slaves in a rural community in Madagascar; it was about magic as a tool of politics, about the nature of power, character, and the meaning of history. He has also worked extensively on value theory, and has recently completed a major research project on social movements dedicated to principles of direct democracy, direct action, and has written widely on the relation (real and potential) of anthropology and anarchism. He is currently also working on a project on the history of debt.

Selected publications

2007 Lost People: Magic and the Legacy of Slavery in Madagascar, University of Indiana Press

2005 'Fetishism and Social Creativity, or Fetishes are Gods in Process of Construction' in Anthropological Theory 5(4), pp. 407-438

2005 'La democratie des insterstices', in Revue du MAUSS Semestrielle 26

2001 Towards an Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of Our Own Dreams, Palgrave.