16 A handbook of cultural economics and interviewed by anthropologists- their informants -are by definition experts on their own lives and local culture, no matter how low they may rank in their social or economic structure. 2 The typical anthropological research site is thus a local community in a non-Western country(for example, Australian aborigines) or a marginal ed community in a first-world country(for example, American Anthropologists in these circumstances have had a long-standing interest in three sorts of topics: studies of the art of third-world or exotic cultures, 3 where the study shows the cultural meanings of art objects; studies of museum exhibitions and policies, which attempt to bridge the cultural gap between marginalized, non-Western and Western cultures; and studies of contemporary art world arly studies of the art of small-scale, tribal communities focused on establishing the cultural provenance of the objects in order to establish typo- logical taxonomies, and served the needs of the Western museum curators who directed the objects into the primitive art or the ethnographic sections of the museums. When such things were displayed simply as art objects, without any explication of their cultural meaning, anthropologists have been severely critical. This deculturing of the object seemed also somewhat dehumanizing, as usually no attempt was made to identify the individual native artist, as would have been the case with Western art objects. It seemed to anthropologists to be held over from the bad old days of unrepentant colonialism(Price, 1989). Other more historical studies have analysed museum collections as portraits of exotic societies at the point in history when the objects were collected, as well as depictions of the anthropolog and Western mind-set of the time when dealing with third-world cultures. More recent studies of third-world art are interested in showing how the art expresses local or national culture. Heider(1991)for example, shows how ndonesian film expresses unique aspects of Indonesian culture. Many studies focus on the interaction of dominant capitalist societies with subser vient local art worlds. in the context of tourism or of Western commodifica tion and distribution through a gallery-museum system( Coote and Shelton, 1992; Karp and Lavine, 1991, provide a good survey of work). The issues nis literature include the tensions introduced into local communities by Western art market values, which stress individual creativity and competition as well as personal freedom. Non-Western traditional(for example, Australian Aboriginal)communities tend to be structured to repress individ ual identity in favour of group welfare. The amazing success of Aboriginal communities in creating a unique art that has succeeded in generating a worldwide market has had its costs(Myers, 2001). While non-Western com munities want and need the income derived from selling local products to non-local markets, they resent the cultural baggage of commodification and (in their view) Western-style hyperindividualization that seems inexorably toand interviewed by anthropologists – their informants – are by definition experts on their own lives and local culture, no matter how low they may rank in their social or economic structure.2 The typical anthropological research site is thus a local community in a non-Western country (for example, Australian aborigines) or a marginal￾ized community in a first-world country (for example, American Indians). Anthropologists in these circumstances have had a long-standing interest in three sorts of topics: studies of the art of third-world or exotic cultures,3 where the study shows the cultural meanings of art objects; studies of museum exhibitions and policies, which attempt to bridge the cultural gap between marginalized, non-Western and Western cultures; and studies of contemporary art worlds. Early studies of the art of small-scale, tribal communities focused on establishing the cultural provenance of the objects in order to establish typo￾logical taxonomies, and served the needs of the Western museum curators who directed the objects into the primitive art or the ethnographic sections of the museums. When such things were displayed simply as art objects, without any explication of their cultural meaning, anthropologists have been severely critical. This deculturing of the object seemed also somewhat dehumanizing, as usually no attempt was made to identify the individual native artist, as would have been the case with Western art objects. It seemed to anthropologists to be held over from the bad old days of unrepentant colonialism (Price, 1989). Other more historical studies have analysed museum collections as portraits of exotic societies at the point in history when the objects were collected, as well as depictions of the anthropology and Western mind-set of the time when dealing with third-world cultures. More recent studies of third-world art are interested in showing how the art expresses local or national culture. Heider (1991) for example, shows how Indonesian film expresses unique aspects of Indonesian culture. Many studies focus on the interaction of dominant capitalist societies with subser￾vient local art worlds, in the context of tourism or of Western commodifica￾tion and distribution through a gallery–museum system (Coote and Shelton, 1992; Karp and Lavine, 1991, provide a good survey of work). The issues in this literature include the tensions introduced into local communities by Western art market values, which stress individual creativity and competition as well as personal freedom. Non-Western ‘traditional’ (for example, Australian Aboriginal) communities tend to be structured to repress individ￾ual identity in favour of group welfare. The amazing success of Aboriginal communities in creating a unique art that has succeeded in generating a worldwide market has had its costs (Myers, 2001). While non-Western com￾munities want and need the income derived from selling local products to non-local markets, they resent the cultural baggage of commodification and (in their view) Western-style hyperindividualization that seems inexorably to 16 A handbook of cultural economics