Chris Gregory

Christopher A. Gregory is an Australian economic anthropologist. He is based at Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra, and has also taught at University of Manchester- where he was made Professor of Political and Economic Anthropology. He studied Economics at University of New South Wales and ANU before pursuing anthropology, following a period in Papua New Guinea. His main research has been in Papua New Guinea and Bastar District, central India, and he also co-authored a research methods manual for economic anthropology, 'Observing the Economy', with Jon Altman.

Papua New Guinea research: Gifts and Commodities (1982) Gregory first grew interested in anthropology whilst resident in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea from 1973 to 1975. Whilst teaching economics at University of Papua New Guinea, Gregory found orthodox economic theory lacking in explanatory power for the different kinds of economic action he observed as he travelled the country. He began to read ethnographic literature on Papua New Guinea, and Marilyn Strathern's ethnography of rural migrants in Port Moresby, No Money on Our Skins, was an influence. He later familiarized himself with key works in anthropology from authors such as Marcel Mauss and Claude Levi-Strauss. Gregory's casual empirical observations during this period was to inspire his research at University of Cambridge from 1976 to 1981. Gregory developed a synthesis of classical political economists (such as Quesnay, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and predominantly Karl Marx), which he found more useful than the prevailing economic theory, and classical anthropological theory (from the likes of Lewis Henry Morgan, Claude Levi-Strauss, and especially Marcel Mauss) in order to draw a series of contrasts between the logics of commodity and gift exchange. The book is in two parts: the first half develops the concepts and distinctions surrounding gift and commodity exchange, and the second half draws on ethnographic and empirical evidence to explain the economy in colonial Papua New Guinea.

Whilst some critics accused Gregory of making overdrawn binary contrast between industrialized countries and Papua New Guinea, Gregory answered his critics in his later book Savage Money, and in his preface to the second edition, explaining the book was intended precisely as an affirmation of the coexistence of gifts and commodities in late colonial Papua New Guinea (PNG), and particularly the paradoxical efflorescence of gift exchange during the colonial period. and particularly the "free market anarchism" which dominated after Nixon's government unpegged the dollar from the gold standard. Gregory's analysis, together with Michael Hudson's writings, inspired David Graeber's discussion of the present era in Chapter 12 his bestselling book "Debt: the first 5000 years".

Since the publication of Savage Money, Gregory has published a large number of articles and papers on economic anthropology, and has continued to conduct research in India, particularly on the political economy and culture of rice-growing in central India as expressed in women's oral epics, kinship and marriage, and on land transactions.

Personal life Chris Gregory is married to Judith Robinson, a diplomat who served for a time as Acting High Commissioner to Fiji, and has two daughters.

Principal publications

Books Gregory, C. A. and Altman, J. C., eds, 2018. T he Quest for the Good Life in Precarious Times: Informal, Ethnographic Perspectives on the Domestic Moral Economy. Canberra: ANU Press. Gregory, C & Vaishnav, H, eds, 2003, Lachmi Jagar: Gurumai Sukdais Story of the Bastar Rice Goddess, Chhattisgarh, India: Kaksad Publications. Gregory C. A. 1997. Savage Money: the anthropology and politics of commodity exchange. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic. Gregory C. A. and Altman, J. C., eds, 1988. Observing the Economy. London: Routledge. Gregory, C. A. 1982. Gifts and Commodities. London: Academic Press.