Gives detailed analyses of some of the ways in which living people grapple with and try to make sense of pressing social and economic challenges in times of societal transformations posed by emergent capitalist relations and an increased influence of and dependence on a market economy. While the ethnography of the specific problems negotiated and discussed are sometimes unique to the Marshall Islands case, they reflect larger issues with relevance for everyone affected by, and concerned about their own engagement with, a capitalist economy. Revitalizes the culture concept in anthropological analyses by highlighting and carefully unpacking the analytical tensions that arise from its dual nature as an emic construction and etic concept. This revitalization is as much methodological as theoretical as it frames the possible disagreement between the anthropologist's and their research participants' understanding of certain concepts as an analytically fruitful path of exploration. Is one of only two ethnographic accounts of contemporary cultural production and meaning making in the Micronesia region published in the last twenty years. It will therefore be an valuable addition to a relatively scarce regional literature.