The rarity and superfluousness of luxury are, for social science researchers, starting points from which to examine the political value of goods and its irreducibility to purely economic factors.
A workshop held in 2015 on the theme "The Routes of Luxury", organised by Marc Abélès, Director of Studies at EHESS and Director of research at CNRS, brought together several researchers to discuss this growing topic in the social sciences: M. Badaro (IDAES, Buenos Aires), C. Cartier (University of Sydney, China Research Center), J. Osburg (University of Rochester), S. Yanagisako (Stanford University), J. Zhao (University of Louisville).
Another workshop, “Beyond Value: Rarity, Luxury and Relational Consumption in China”, was held in Denver in November 2015 at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association.
