ABSTRACT
Among the most fascinating new sites for anthropological investigation are the transforming societies of the former socialist bloc. 1 They are veritable laboratories for all manner of subjects, including the nature of states and their relationship to nationalism, the redefinition of property rights, the decomposition of ‘latifundia’ or large agricultural estates as in post-colonial Latin America and post-feudal Europe, and the transformation of class structures. In addition, they are host to a new variant of something anthropologists have been studying in other parts of the globe for decades: changed cultural conceptions that accompany the increasing presence of capitalism and markets in formerly non-capitalist, non-market contexts. These changed conceptions affect everything from people's ideas about time, self and work to their understandings of money and commodities.
