Kedron Thomas (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780520290969
- eISBN:
- 9780520964860
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520290969.003.0005
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Latin American Cultural Anthropology
The book’s analytical approach to material culture is foregrounded in Chapter 4, which focuses on the material technologies and techniques of business accounting and audit. The chapter explores a ...
More
The book’s analytical approach to material culture is foregrounded in Chapter 4, which focuses on the material technologies and techniques of business accounting and audit. The chapter explores a government campaign that urges Guatemalans to “Ask for your receipt!” after every economic transaction. The campaign disparages business owners and service workers who fail to conform to models of professionalism and modernity associated with economic formalization and encourages consumers to demand that businesses adopt a more professional style premised on the use of paper. The chapter includes discussion of how the international development industry, including microfinance and microloan programs, similarly privileges the use of certain calculating tools, techniques, and methods of documentation in the promotion of neoliberal, entrepreneurial forms of development. While Maya workshop owners worry that receipts accede authority and concede their businesses to the state, they have their own charged debates about the accounting styles of neighbors and competitors and the place of documentation in their trade. How clothing producers record transactions, set prices, manage debt, and figure profit gets audited among people working in the regional apparel trade in terms of a model of professionalized and enterprising masculinity.Less
The book’s analytical approach to material culture is foregrounded in Chapter 4, which focuses on the material technologies and techniques of business accounting and audit. The chapter explores a government campaign that urges Guatemalans to “Ask for your receipt!” after every economic transaction. The campaign disparages business owners and service workers who fail to conform to models of professionalism and modernity associated with economic formalization and encourages consumers to demand that businesses adopt a more professional style premised on the use of paper. The chapter includes discussion of how the international development industry, including microfinance and microloan programs, similarly privileges the use of certain calculating tools, techniques, and methods of documentation in the promotion of neoliberal, entrepreneurial forms of development. While Maya workshop owners worry that receipts accede authority and concede their businesses to the state, they have their own charged debates about the accounting styles of neighbors and competitors and the place of documentation in their trade. How clothing producers record transactions, set prices, manage debt, and figure profit gets audited among people working in the regional apparel trade in terms of a model of professionalized and enterprising masculinity.
