The book is located, in its theory and methods, at the intersections of linguistic and economic anthropology. Inverting the classic concept of “moral economy,” Selective Solidarity develops a theory of “economic moralities,” that is, normative expectations regarding material circulation. I focus on economic moralities, plural, to emphasize the multiplicity of moral pressures that shape economic relations.

Directing attention to moralities rather than economies also helps avoid the inadvertent reproduction of dichotomous portrayals of “moral economies” as opposed to some “real” or unmarked, market economy. Instead, it invites a cross-scalar analysis of the ways that social actors alternate between diverse moral positions in unfolding interaction, reproducing economic practices across contexts and scales. To do so, it draws on the tools of linguistic and semiotic anthropology. Linguistic anthropology, with its long history of analyzing language in unfolding interaction, is equipped with nuanced concepts (like interdiscursivity, indexicality, and semiotic ideologies) for examining the ways that economic moralities may be drawn on in conversation to shape resource flows.

Audio recordings and transcript analysis allowed me to examine the subtle ways economic moralities become palpable in families’ everyday interactions, shaping participants’ uptake of the situation and influencing exchanges of resources.I came to study the ways moral language moves money, via the study of food. In 2008, I did a master’s thesis at the EHESS (École des hautes études en sciences sociales), Paris, on eating practices in Senegal. Carrying out fieldwork in neighborhoods across Dakar, I realized that, rich or poor, families were eating roughly the same dishes every week (ceebu jën and two-marmite dishes, like yassa and mafé).

Bourdieusian distinction applied only to certain details (whether a household could afford quality fish, whether a cook used bouillon cubes with artificial red coloring). Food was not an index of personal identity. Instead, what mattered to people in Dakar was who ate with whom, who was cooking, who a household was feeding (supporting), which households were collaborating to cook and eat together. Moral discourses concerning food were focused on the expectation to share with anyone present at meal (or snack) time.

People explicitly describe virtuous food sharing as functioning in similar ways to the circulation of wealth or monetary support, comparing eaters around the communal dish to society, where adults who work must feed children, elders, and the unemployed. In a sense, the book is the result of years of puzzling over the moral discourses that Senegalese used to explain and shape acts of food sharing.