Nancy Munn

Nancy Munn is an anthropologist who was a professor at the University of Chicago until June 1997 when she retired. She has a PhD, Australian National 1961. At the University of Chicago, she taught Anthropology and Social Science. She studies exchange, which Graeber discusses in chapter two of Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value, and poses that value and worth are an outcome of human effort. Her point of view on value is "Commodities have to be produced... , social relationships have to be created and maintained; all of this requires an investment of human time and energy, intelligence, concern. If one sees value as a matter of the relative distribution of that..."(Graeber 45).
Munn has done much of her research in Australia, New Guinea and the Islands off the coast of New Guinea. Her degree from Australian National University is likely the reason for her focus in that area of the world.