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2020/2021

Economic Anthropology

Code: 101267 ECTS Credits: 6
Degree Type Year Semester
2500256 Social and Cultural Anthropology OB 2 1
The proposed teaching and assessment methodology that appear in the guide may be subject to changes as a result of the restrictions to face-to-face class attendance imposed by the health authorities.

Contact

Name:
Hugo Valenzuela García
Email:
Hugo.Valenzuela@uab.cat

Use of Languages

Principal working language:
spanish (spa)
Some groups entirely in English:
No
Some groups entirely in Catalan:
Yes
Some groups entirely in Spanish:
Yes

Other comments on languages

Lectures are in Spanish/Catalan: Erasmus and foreign students SHOULD be able to speak, read and write in at least one of these languages. No specific tutorial in English will be provided.

Prerequisites

No specific requirement is needed

Objectives and Contextualisation

1) To know the most important disciplinary contributions of economic anthropology.
2) To understand the historical and cultural diversity of the economic institutions other than the market society.
3) To identify forms of informal economy in our immediate environment.
										
											 

Competences

  • Apprehending cultural diversity through ethnography and critically assessing ethnographic materials as knowledge of local contexts and as a proposal of theoretical models.
  • Developing critical thinking and reasoning and communicating them effectively both in your own and other languages.
  • Respecting the diversity and plurality of ideas, people and situations.
  • Students must be capable of applying their knowledge to their work or vocation in a professional way and they should have building arguments and problem resolution skills within their area of study.
  • Students must be capable of collecting and interpreting relevant data (usually within their area of study) in order to make statements that reflect social, scientific or ethical relevant issues.
  • Students must demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the history of anthropological theory and the genesis of its basic concepts.
  • Using the discipline's ethnographic and theoretical corpus with analytical and synthesis skills.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Analysing the complementarity and incongruities of several ethnographic reports from the same area.
  2. Applying the basic concepts of the anthropological theory.
  3. Assessing critically the explicit and implicit theoretical models in the ethnographic materials.
  4. Engaging in debates about historical and contemporary facts and respecting the other participants' opinions.
  5. Establishing historical connection between ethnographic and theoretical development.
  6. Identifying main and supporting ideas and expressing them with linguistic correctness.
  7. Identifying the sociocultural variability through ethnographic texts and audiovisual resources.
  8. Identifying the transcultural variability of economic, kinship, political, symbolic and cognitive, educational and gender systems as well as their corresponding anthropological theory.
  9. Interpreting the cultural diversity through ethnography.
  10. Knowing and understanding the culture's influence in the various institutional systems of social action.
  11. Summarising acquired knowledge about the origin and transformations experienced in the several fields of anthropology.
  12. Summarizing the characteristics of a written text in accordance to its communicative purposes.
  13. Theoretically analysing ethnographic examples of cultural diversity in the fields of kinship, economy, politics and religion.

Content

The contents of the subject are structured in different thematic blocks:
										
											1. Anthropology and economics
										
											2. Theoretical orientations in economic anthropology
										
											 3. Informal economy and employment.
										
											4. Production.
										
											5. Distribution.
										
											6. Consumption
										
											 
										
											Within each block the topics are the following:
										
											
										
											1. Anthropology and economics
										
											• Aristotle and the scholastics
										
											• Fisiocracy and political economy
										
											• The classical economy
										
											• The Marxist economy
										
											• The neoclassical economy
										
											• Keynesianism, Monetarism, Neoinstitutionalism.
										
											 
										
											2. Theoretical orientations in economic anthropology
										
											• Formalist arguments
										
											• Substantive Arguments
										
											• Environmental deterministic versus possibilityism
										
											• Cultural evolution and adaptation
										
											• Cultural ecology
										
											• Godelier's structural Marxism
										
											• Meillassoux: the mode of domestic production.
										
											• The invention of underdevelopment
										
											• The theory of dependence
										
											• The capitalist involution
										
											 
										
											3. Informal economy and employment
										
											• The dual labor market
										
											• The "end of work"
										
											• Beyond the market
										
											• Ethnic enclaves or ethnic economies
										
											 
										
											4. Production
										
											• Ecology
										
											• Technology
										
											• Work
										
											• Hunting-harvesting
										
											• Primitive agriculture
										
											• Breeders
										
											• Technology and evolution
										
											 
										
											5. Distribution
										
											• Commerce
										
											• Market
										
											• Multicenter economies
										
											• Primitive currency
										
											
										
											 
										
											6. Consumption
										
											• The ostensible consumption
										
											• Habitus, taste and distinction

Methodology

Metodology implies a wide array of activities, but there are two main activities: theory (lectures) and practice (trough exercices, debates, readings, etc.)

Activities

Title Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Type: Directed      
Discussion of papers 10 0.4 13, 3, 7, 6, 4
External visit 8 0.32 10, 5, 8
Lectures (theory) 35 1.4 13, 10, 8, 2
Type: Supervised      
Optional essay (*under specific conditions) 20 0.8 13, 7, 6
Practices and exercises 10 0.4 2
Type: Autonomous      
Internet searching 5 0.2 7
Reading of materials 16 0.64 13, 9

Assessment

Only partial exams and work and constinous assessment (through an extra work) are recoverable.

IMPORTANT:

The final grade will be communicated through the virtual campus in an individualized manner and a review session will be scheduled, as well as a re-evaluation. Outside of these scheduled dates, or routes, claims or reviews will not be attended nor e-mails answered. Doubts and claims will be addressed exclusively at the scheduled session of review of notes.

The works will be delivered exclusively through the option "File delivery" of the virtual campus that will have an established period of validity.

The personal casuistry that may influence the normal follow-up of the course by a particular student (illnesses, jobs, personal issues ...) may be discussed with the teacher, who will try to give a flexible option to the student if it is reasonably justified. However, only these issues will be taken into account when they are, supervening and conveniently justified (with formal certificates) and, when known in advance, are discussed with the teacher during the first school month of the subject - not after the last moment.

To participate in the recovery of students must have been previously evaluated [does not mean approved] in a set of activities (minimum 2/3 of the total score).

In the event of a student committing any irregularity that may lead to a significant variation in the grade awarded to an assessment activity, the student will be given a zero for this activity, regardless of any disciplinary process that may take place. In the event of several irregularities in assessment activities of the same subject, the student will be given a zero as the final grade for this subject.

In the event that tests or exams cannot be taken onsite, they will be adapted to an online format made available through the UAB’s virtual tools (original weighting will be maintained). Homework, activities and class participation will be carried out through forums, wikis and/or discussion on Teams, etc. Lecturers will ensure that students are able to access these virtual tools, or will offer them feasible alternatives.

Assessment Activities

Title Weighting Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Participation and interaction 20% 10 0.4 3, 8, 6, 4, 2
Test 1 20% 10 0.4 13, 3, 11, 2
Test 2 20% 10 0.4 5, 8, 12, 11, 2
Work and continuous assessment (readings, exercices, team work, etc) 40% 16 0.64 1, 13, 3, 10, 5, 7, 8, 6, 9, 4, 12, 11, 2

Bibliography

Compulsory text book:

Molina, JL i Valenzuela, Hugo (2006) Invitación a la Antropología Económica. BCN: Bellaterra.

Handbooks

Martínez Veiga, Ubaldo (1989). Antropología económica.  Conceptos, teorías, debates. Cerdanyola: Icaria.

Narotzky, Susana (2005). Antropología económica. Barcelona: Melusina.

Plattner, S. (ed.) (1989). Economic Anthropology. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Introduction. Atrhopology and Economy

Dumont, Louis (1992).Homo aequalis. Génesis y apogeo de la ideología ec

onómica [Homo aqualis. Genèse et épanouissement de l'idéologie économique, 1977]. Madrid: Taurus.

Herskovits, Melville J. (1954). Antropología económica. Estudio de economía comparada. [Economic Anthropology. A Study in Comparative Economics (1952)]. México: F.C.E..

Barber, William J. (1992). Historia del pensamiento económico [A History of

Economic Thought, 1967]. Madrid: Alianza Universidad.

Formalism vs substantivism

Burling, Robbins (1976)."Teorías de maximización y el estudio de la antropología  económica" en Godelier, M. (ed.), Antropología y economía. Barcelona: Anagrama.

Polanyi, Karl (1992). La gran transformación. Los orígenes políticos y económicos de nuestro tiempo [The Great Transformation. The Political and Economic Origins of our Time, 1944]. México: F.C.E.

Cultural materialism

Harris, Marvin (1982). El materialismo cultural como estrategia de investigación. Madrid: Alianza.

Rappaport, Roy A. (1987). Cerdospara los antepasados. El ritual en la ecología de un pueblo en Nueva Guinea[Pigs for the ancestors. Ritual in the ecology of a New Guinea people, 1968]. Madrid: Editorial Siglo XXI.

Marxism

Parte III de Godelier, M. (1976). Antropología y Economía. Barcelona: Anagrama.

Meillassoux, Claude (1987). Mujeres, graneros y capitales. Economía doméstica y capitalismo [Femmes, greniers, capitaux. 1975]. Madrid: Siglo XXI.

Development

Viola, Andreu (2000). Antropología del desarrollo. Teorías y estudios etnográficos en América Latina. Barcelona: Paidós

Informal Economy

Mingione, Enzo (1993). Las sociedades fragmentadas. Una sociología de la vida económica más allá del paradigma del mercado [Fragmented Societies. A Sociology of Economic Life beyond the Market Paradigm, 1991]. Madrid: Ministerio de Trabajo y Seguridad Social.

Pahl, R.E. (1991). Divisiones del trabajo [Divisions of Labour, 1984]. Madrid: Ministerio de Trabajo y Seguridad social.

Rifklin, Jeremy (1996). El fin del trabajo. Nuevas tecnologías contra puestos de trabajo:el nacimiento de una nueva era [The end of work. The decline of the global labor force and the dawn of the post-market era, 1994]. Barcelona: Paidós.

Production

Valdés del Toro (1976). "Ecología y trabajo, fiestas y dieta en un concejo del Occidente astur" en C. LISÓN (ed.),Temas de antropología española. Madrid: Akal.

Wolf, Eric R. (1978).Los campesinos [Peasants, 1971]. Barcelona: Labor.

Distribution

Malinowski, B. (1986).Els argonautes del Pacífic Occidental. Estudi sobre el tarannà emprenedor i aventurer dels indígenes dels arxipèlags de la Nova Guinea melànesia [Argonautes of the Western Pacific. An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea, 1922]. Barcelona: Edicions 62/Diputació de Barcelona.

Piddocke, Stuart (1981). "El sistemade potlatch de los kwakiutl del sur: una nueva perspectiva" [Southwestern Journal of Anthropology , 1960] en Llobera, J.R., Antropologia Económica. Estudios Etnográficos. Barcelona: Anagrama.

Godelier, M. (1998). El enigma del don [L'ènigme du don, 1996]. Barcelona: Paidós.Economies multicéntriques i la moneda primitiva Armstrong, W.E. (1981). "La moneda de la isla Rossel: un sistema monetario único" [The Economic Journal , vol. XXXIV, sept. 1924] en Llobera, J.R., Antropologia Económica. Estudios Etnográficos. Barcelona: Anagrama.

Bohannan, Paul J. (1981). "El impacto de la moneda en una economía africana de subsistencia" [The Journal of Economic History, 19, dic. 1959] en Llobera, J.R., Antropologia Económica. Estudios Etnográficos. Barcelona: Anagrama.

Einzing, Paul (1949).Primitive Money. In its Ethnological, Historial and Economic Aspects. Glasgow: Pergamon Press.

Moreno Feliu, Paz (1991). ¿El dinero? Cuadernos A de Antropología , 11. Anthropos.

Consumption

Veblen, Thorstein (1966). Teoria de la clase ociosa[1899]. F.C.E., México, 1966.

Fine, Ben (2002).The World of Consumption. The Material and Cultural Revisited.London & New York: Routledge.

Bourdieu, Pierre (1988).La distinción: criterio y bases sociales del gusto [ La Distinction, 1979]. Taurus, Madrid, 1988