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Semester 2

Consumption, Exchange, Technology (SCAN10031)

Subject

Social Anthropology

College

CAHSS

Credits

20

Normal Year Taken

3

Delivery Session Year

2023/2024

Pre-requisites

Visiting students must have completed at least 3 Social Anthropology courses at grade B or above. We will only consider University/College level courses.

Course Summary

The course discusses how goods are produced, circulated and consumed, and how these three fundamental processes of social life and reproduction are mediated by technology. Classically, economic anthropologists focused on how such activities were organised in small-scale societies or in colonial territories; often production and exchange, with their associated technologies, were highlighted while consumption received less attention. Today the impact of globalisation, the rise of the digital society, and the overflowing material abundance that characterises life in the advanced economies and aspirations elsewhere, have led many social theorists to focus on consumption and communication as the key factors determining how people experience power, identity, connections and conflicts. We study a range of case studies and theoretical essays, evaluating the strengths, weaknesses and applicability of different approaches.

Course Description

Indicative themes: 1. Gifts - Gifts are among the most central and celebrated topics in anthropology. Why is this? In anthropological thought, exchange is often regarded as the cornerstone of relational life, particularly in small-scale societies. In this class we will explore the theoretical work of exchange through a discussion of classic and contemporary analyses of the gift. In so doing, we will examine the potential and problems of exchange as a social phenomenon and analytical category. 2. Commodities - One of the central components of capitalist economies is the commodity. Anthropologists have historically opposed the commodity to the gift as a sort of asocial token of exchange, a large-scale capitalist analogue of the small-scale non-capitalist gift. In this class we will explore these arguments, as well as more recent critiques that trouble an easy distinction between commodities and gifts, and between capitalism and non-capitalist forms of economic organization 3. Value - Value is a multivalent term that has recently been given new prominence in anthropological theory. Value is about economics, but also ethics, culture, differentiation, and rank. This lecture will explore the various interrelated definitions of value common in anthropology to attempt to arrive at a unified theory. 4.Production - The process of production the transformation of matter into useful goods through work forms a central tenant of capitalist economic theory and practice. Anthropologists have consistently questioned assumptions of the universality of a capitalist mode of production. This lecture will interrogate this important area of scholarship. What does an appreciation of the necessary embeddedness of production in the domains of kinship, gender, class, and politics reveal for instance? How is production linked to other areas economic concern, such as commodities and value? 5. Consumption - What does it mean to think of people as consumers? Such an approach has its roots in political economy, but can be controversial today on the grounds that it plays into the hands of big business. At the same time, anthropologists have found consumption as a useful conceptual and methodological tool for exploring how activities such as shopping, eating, getting dressed, having leisure time, and making homes are both important facets of human experience. Consumption can provide insights into what people think about kinship, politics, time, and religion. 6. Technology - Technology has served as both a catalyst and a measure of progress in the modern world. This week we look at some anthropological perspectives on the compulsion of technology and its social or cultural impacts, considering ways in which technology has been bracketed off from society. We discuss subjective experiences of technology and how to understand these socially. 7.Money - Money has often been described as a singularly disrupting technology, a universal equivalent that shifts the ground under value and exchange. In at least some societies, the introduction of money has been greeted as a dangerous change, subject to moral censure. This class will examine different responses to money, as well as the various ways that money is used around the world. 8.Debt - While debt as it relates to a gift economy has been central to anthropological study for over a century, it is only recently that debt in the contemporary, financialized sense of the term has received significant attention in the discipline. This class will examine the emerging literature on debt as it pertains both to older fiduciary institutions and new credit regimes. It puts into conversation moral and monetary economies and asks: What do we owe to each other to our loved ones, banks and states? What are the temporalities of making debts? What happens when debts are not repaid? 9. Finance - This lecture explores the burgeoning field of the anthropology of finance. The issue of the corporation has assumed particular importance since the global financial crisis that began in 2008, with bankers bonuses perennially in the news, and accusations of corruption levelled at corporate bosses. But what is a corporation legally, socially, and ideologically? How have anthropologists tackled the nature of modern business, greed and the legal implications of corporate personhood? 10. Economic utopias and dystopias - Economic anthropologists have always had a different relation to the past and the future than economists. By valuing diversity over linear progress, anthropologists have usually been suspicious of overhyped projections of future growth. Ethnographies of other societies and non-capitalist modes of production often have utopian undertones. The final lecture is an invitation to use our anthropological skills for thought experiments: How does our discipline equip us to study alternative and future economies? Are there limits to what can be commodified, and who can be included into productive labour?

Assessment Information

Written Exam 70%, Coursework 30%, Practical Exam 0%

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