There is a mutual connection between environment and economy that is often not recognized in economic anthropology. While economic anthropology conventionally examines how people evaluate their relations through the artefacts they create, value and exchange, the article suggests that such artefacts include environments as well as more usual economic things (e.g. money or manufactured commodities). Three related entities are identified as imparting a distinct form to the mutual connections of environment and economy: place, boundary and map. Ethnographic case studies from the Scottish Borders (UK), Guinea (West Africa) and Lake Titicaca (Peru) are drawn upon to illustrate these connections and to highlight the ways people assess and value their relationships through created artefacts. The case studies also emphasize the need to attend to how such measures and values operate in context, both quantitatively and qualitatively, depending on the perspectives and interests of the agents involved.
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