Minerals, Collecting, and Value across the US-Mexico Border [Paperback]

Elizabeth Emma Ferry traces the movement of minerals as they circulate from Mexican mines to markets, museums, and private collections on both sides of the US-Mexico border. She describes how and why these byproducts of ore mining come to be valued by people in various walks of life as scientific specimens, religious offerings, works of art, and luxury collectibles. The story of mineral exploration and trade defines a variegated transnational space, shedding new light on the complex relationship between these two countries and on the process of making value itself.

Minerals, Collecting, and Value makes a novel contribution to the anthropology of natural resources by weaving together theories of value and concepts from actor network theory to historicize the formation of U.S.-Mexico as a transnational space.Ferry is primarily concerned with three fields in which minerals are valued: ore mining, mineral collecting, and mineralogy. As any respectable ethnographer, she aims to understand the intimate bond between the human and the object (in this case, the mineral) and how meaning is attached to it, value created, and value given or taken away. . . [A] jewel to those interested in ore mining, mineral collecting and mineralogy, or the anthropology of value.May 2015An outstanding ethnographic account of the extraction and international circulation of mineral specimens that is sure to be of interest to a broad readership.Students with little knowledge of the topic as well as scholars in this area will enjoy this book, part of the 'Tracking Globalization' series. . . . Highly recommended.An exciting new contribution to sociocultural anthropology, one that is strongly ethnographic and richly analyzed . . . . Will make a major and important contribution to the literature on how value is created.

Elizabeth Emma Ferry is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Brandeis University. She is author of Not Ours Alone: Patrimony, Value, and Collectivity in Contemporary Mexico lĉ