Those with the gift of gab know that talk is not cheap – the right phrase at the right time can be profitable or prestigious. In a series of three podcasts coming out now, my co-host (and advisor!) Dr. Kate Graber and I explore how language is or can be valued or valuable. These podcasts are on Mergers & Acquisitions, the official podcast of the Society for Economic Anthropology.

In our first podcast, we interviewed Dr. Jillian Cavanaugh about her work on food, value, and language in Bergamo Italy. She tells us about how ‘standard’ Italian is seen as more valuable in some ways than the regional Bergamasco dialect – and how Bergamasco can be the better business choice for heritage foods.

In our second episode, we spoke with Montse Perez Castro while she was conducting fieldwork on the palm oil industry in Mexico. She told us about how sustainability workers in this industry communicate about (and thereby create) the value of sustainability in the supply chain.

For our third and final episode, we talked with Dr. Thea Strand about her research in Norway on a dialect that won a national popularity contest, and the use of local language on wayfinding signs for tourists.