Two stories of learning and economic agency in Yunnan

This essay takes up the question of learning and economic agency, drawing on fieldwork material from southwest China. It focuses on two men who are very different from one another - in terms of age, temperament, bearing, experience and outlook. An outline account of the life experiences of these two very different persons is used to illustrate the complex relationship between knowledge acquisition and economic practice. The essay draws on Gell's discussion of human technical systems as a way of expanding our notion of what counts as "economics-relevant learning". Briefly, it is argued that a huge range of techniques is potentially relevant to economic agency, and that an adequate account of the acquisition of such techniues may require us to adopt a very long historical perspective.