Anthropology 697AE - ST-Economic Anthropology

In an era when the economy dominates cultural and institutional practices as well as political discourse, this graduate seminar turns to the subfield of economic anthropology to address problems related to value, inequality, reciprocity, and solidarity. A critical feminist approach to knowledge production informs this seminar. In that spirit, our point of departure is Anna Tsing's The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins (2015) to address a key question: What manages to thrive in the ruins we have made? This multispecies ethnography invites thinking about possible worlds and provides contemporary mooring for considering the legacies of Marx, Malinowski, and Mauss. How have these legacies shaped research agendas? What inspirations are there for conducting careful ethnographic analysis to address questions related to urgent problems with economic dimensions? We consider key legacies in terms of understanding economic diversity, limitations, and possibilities. We collectively grapple with political economy approaches as well as newer agendas related to the anthropology of crisis, neo-Marxism, feminism, ecological anthropology, development anthropology, post-peasants, neoliberalism, and globalization. The seminar aims to provide a nurturing space to incubate student research projects, statements of field, prospectus documents, and grant proposals.