Economic Anthropology
Code: 101267 ECTS Credits: 6| Degree | Type | Year | Semester |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2500256 Social and Cultural Anthropology | OB | 2 | 1 |
Contact
- Name:
- Jose Luis Molina Gonzalez
- Email:
- joseluis.molina@uab.cat
Teaching groups languages
You can check it through this link. To consult the language you will need to enter the CODE of the subject. Please note that this information is provisional until 30 November 2023.
Teachers
- Miroslav Ariel Alexis Pulgar Corrotea
Prerequisites
No specific requirement is needed
Objectives and Contextualisation
Main goals of the course are:
- To know the most important disciplinary contributions of economic anthropology.
- To understand the historical and cultural diversity of the economic institutions.
- To identify forms of informal economy in our immediate environment.
In addition:
- To valorise the ethnological heritatge related to the field.
Competences
- Act with ethical responsibility and respect for fundamental rights and duties, diversity and democratic values.
- Apprehending cultural diversity through ethnography and critically assessing ethnographic materials as knowledge of local contexts and as a proposal of theoretical models.
- Carry out effective written work or oral presentations adapted to the appropriate register in different languages.
- Demonstrate skills for working autonomously or in teams to achieve the planned objectives including in multicultural and interdisciplinary contexts.
- 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.
- Take sex- or gender-based inequalities into consideration when operating within one's own area of knowledge.
- Use digital tools and critically interpret specific documentary sources.
- Using the discipline's ethnographic and theoretical corpus with analytical and synthesis skills.
Learning Outcomes
- Analysing the complementarity and incongruities of several ethnographic reports from the same area.
- Applying the basic concepts of the anthropological theory.
- Assess the reliability of sources, select important data and cross-check information.
- Assessing critically the explicit and implicit theoretical models in the ethnographic materials.
- Critically analyse the principles, values and procedures that govern the exercise of the profession.
- Critically identify and compose a basic bibliography for the field opf study.
- Effectively working in teams and respecting different opinions.
- Establishing historical connection between ethnographic and theoretical development.
- Express ideas with a specific vocabulary appropriate to the discipline.
- Identify the principal forms of sex- or gender-based inequality and discrimination present in society.
- Identifying the sociocultural variability through ethnographic texts and audiovisual resources.
- Identifying the transcultural variability of economic, kinship, political, symbolic and cognitive, educational and gender systems as well as their corresponding anthropological theory.
- Interpreting the cultural diversity through ethnography.
- Knowing and understanding the culture's influence in the various institutional systems of social action.
- Summarising acquired knowledge about the origin and transformations experienced in the several fields of anthropology.
- Summarizing the characteristics of a written text in accordance to its communicative purposes.
- 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
The teaching methodology used in this course will involve:
1. Classroom practices: independent or group work on a specific topic.
2. Theoretical / practical contributions: an introduction by the teacher, with examples and discussions with the participants, and the formal presentation of a substantive topic of the syllabus by the students. The materials used in class are available on the Virtual Campus and on other websites managed by teachers.
3. Possible one-day visit (which coincides with the teaching schedule).
Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.
Activities
| Title | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type: Directed | |||
| Discussion of papers | 20 | 0.8 | 5, 1, 17, 4, 14, 8, 9, 6, 11, 12, 10, 13, 16, 15, 7, 2, 3 |
| External visit | 5 | 0.2 | 5, 14, 8, 9, 12, 10 |
| Lectures (theory) | 25 | 1 | 17, 14, 12, 2 |
| Type: Supervised | |||
| Optional essay (*under specific conditions) | 5 | 0.2 | 17, 11 |
| Practices and exercises | 20 | 0.8 | 5, 1, 9, 6, 12, 10, 7, 2, 3 |
| Type: Autonomous | |||
| Internet searching | 25 | 1 | 5, 8, 9, 6, 11, 16, 15, 3 |
| Reading of materials and study | 42 | 1.68 | 5, 1, 17, 4, 14, 8, 9, 6, 11, 10, 13, 16, 2, 3 |
Assessment
The continuous assessment will consist of individual or small group commenting on a text that will be distributed by the teaching staff in class to illustrate each of the program's topics, with a minimum of 6 items, computing the mean to obtain the grade. These documents will be available on the virtual campus.
Only partial exams are recoverable, not the rest of the activities. Partial exams (1 and 2) with a minimum grade of 5 are essential to pass the course. To participate in the re-evaluation, students must have been previously assessed [does not mean passed] in a set of activities (minimum 2/3 of the total grade). The student must complete, at least, the first exam; otherwise, it would be NOT ELIGIBLE FOR EVALUATION.
IMPORTANT:
The final grade will be communicated through the virtual campus in an individualized manner, and a review session and a re-evaluation exercise will be scheduled. Outside of these scheduled dates or routes, comments, claims, or reviews will not be attended to, nor e-mails answered. Doubts and claims will be addressed exclusively at the scheduled session of review of notes.
All deliverable work will be submitted exclusively through the option "File delivery" of the virtual campus (Moodle) with an established validity period. Homework, activities, and class participation will be carried out through forums, wikis, and/or discussions on Teams, etc. Lecturers will ensure that students can access these virtual tools or offer them feasible alternatives.
The personal casuistry that may influence the regular course follow-up 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 at the last moment.
Plagiarism. 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.
Single evaluation. The students who reqeuest this modality of evaluation, communicating it in the period enabled for it, will have to carry out a) an exam of the syllabus of the subject (50%), b) present a commentary of at least three texts commented on in class and available on the Virtual Campus with a maximum of 1,000 words (30%) and c) a summary of some of the chapters of the course manual with a maximum of 300 words (20%). The mean of the three exercises will be the final grade.
Assessment Activities
| Title | Weighting | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Participation and interaction | 10% | 1 | 0.04 | 5, 1, 4, 8, 9, 6, 12, 10, 13, 16, 15, 7, 2, 3 |
| Test 1 | 30% | 1.5 | 0.06 | 17, 4, 15, 2 |
| Test 2 | 30% | 1.5 | 0.06 | 5, 1, 8, 9, 6, 11, 12, 16, 15, 2 |
| Work and continuous assessment (readings, exercices, team work, etc) | 30% | 4 | 0.16 | 1, 17, 4, 14, 8, 11, 12, 13, 16, 15, 2 |
Bibliography
Compulsory textbook:
Molina, JL i Valenzuela, Hugo (2006) Invitación a la Antropología Económica. BCN: Bellaterra.
Handbooks
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., AntropologiaEconómica. 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
Additional references
Baba, Marietta (2006) “Anthropology and Business”, In: H. James H.J. Birx (Ed.). Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Thousand Oaks. Sage. Pp.83-117.
Ho, Karen (2009). Liquidated. An Ethnography of Wall Street. Durham. Duke University Press.
Jeudy-Ballini, Monique and Bernard Juillerat (eds.) (2002). People and Things: Social Mediations in Oceania. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press.
Knowles, Caroline (2014). Flip-Flop: A Journey Through Globalisation's Backroads. Series Anthropology, Culture and Society. Pluto Press.
Strang, Veronica and Mark Busse (eds.) (2011.). Ownership and Appropriation. ASA Monographs, 47. New York: Berg.
Zelizer, Viviana (2007) The Purchase of Intimacy. Princeton University Press.
Zelizer, Viviana (1997) The social meaning of money: pin money, paychecks, poor relief, and other currencies. Princeton University Press.
Software
- Teams
- Word
- Excel
- Power Point