Programme in anthropology and economy

The programme takes classic streams of analysis in new directions drawing on a wide range of theories and ethnographic settings

Anthropology at the 杏吧论坛 was founded by academics such as Malinowski and Firth who engaged with the key categories of the discipline of economics. This tradition has been strengthened through the years by the work of Bloch and Parry on monetary exchange and Fuller and Parry on globalisation, industrialisation and class. Faculty (including Bear, Gardner, Graeber, James, Shah and Weszkalnys) are currently taking these streams of analysis in new directions drawing on a wide range of theories and ethnographic settings.

Questioning the Economy

Anthropologists and sociologists have revealed the technical practices of economists and financial traders that construct the arena of the economy. Yet we still have very little theoretical or ethnographic understanding of how these intersect with social projects of production, reproduction, distribution and consumption. We wish to return to the question of ‘what is the economy?’ with an approach that focuses on the unintended effects and social entanglements of formal models. This is important because it will allow an examination of the relationships between market devices and the political economy of inequality.

Popular Economies

We still know far too little about how economic practice is framed and enacted. Behavioural economics provides complex theories and terminologies for explaining how people act within a ‘market-place.’ These models are increasingly applied to non-market consumption situations such as choices in higher education and politics. Our research explores how people from macro-economists to precarious workers conceptualise and act on the productivity of the world. Do they partition the market from ethics, kinship, ritual and politics? If they do separate out the market, does it include some unexpected elements not recognizable in economists’ models of it? We also ask if formal models of the market have popular moral and religious underpinnings. These are important questions because it is popular economies that generate the social forms of capitalism around us.

Intimate and Generative Economies

Anthropology has long forged the analysis of how household and kinship practices relate to capitalism. Building on this we explore intimate and generative economies. Intimate economies are the lived experiences of labour, reproduction and consumption in relation to which individual and household projects are forged. Generative economies are the wider, collective social arrangements that emerge from these intimate economies. In them production, reproduction, procreation and the processes of generation that exist within the natural world intersect. This approach challenges older models of a disembedded market, by starting with the diverse life-worlds of capitalism.

Inequality

At the centre of our inquiry is an explanation of contemporary inequality. Rather than taking as given accounts of the spread of ‘globalisation’ or ‘neo-liberalism,’ we will examine the precise technical mechanisms, institutional forms and social practices through which unequal accumulation occurs. In particular we will focus on the effects of debt (including sovereign debt), new forms of precarious labour and the structuring of informality. Reflecting our various regional expertise our research will build a new understanding of the political economy of inequality with a global reach.

INCLUSIVE ECONOMIES/ANTHROPOLOGY OF ECONOMY – Lent Term 2023

Jointly organized by the Departments of International Development and Anthropology, this seminar series explores themes concerning the social life of the economy in its broadest sense.

Co-ordinators: Kate Meagher k.meagher@lse.ac.uk, Deborah James d.a.james@lse.ac.uk, Rebecca Bowers r.e.bowers@lse.ac.uk

Selected Wednesdays, 5.00-6.30 pm
CON 7.03 (links will be provided for hybrid attendance)

LENT TERM SCHEDULE

8 February 2023 (Wk 4):
Vincent Guermond (Royal Holloway)
Depleted by debt: Microfinance, climate adaptation, and over-indebtedness in climate-vulnerable Cambodia

8 March 2023 (Wk 8):
Nick Bernards (University of Warwick)
Poverty finance and paradoxes of inclusion

15 March 2023 (Wk 9):
Jacinta Victoria Muinde (University of Olso)
Care solidarities, digital technology and Kenya’s national health insurance

29 March 2020 (Wk 11):
Radha Upadhyaya (University of Nairobi)
Regulatory efforts to reign in digital credit: Case study of evolving regulation in Kenya

INCLUSIVE ECONOMIES/ANTHROPOLOGY OF ECONOMY – Michaelmas Term 2022

Jointly organized by the Departments of International Development and Anthropology, this seminar series explores themes concerning the social life of the economy in its broadest sense.

Co-ordinators: Kate Meagher k.meagher@lse.ac.uk, Deborah James d.a.james@lse.ac.uk, Rebecca Bowers r.e.bowers@lse.ac.uk

MICHAELMAS TERM SCHEDULE

Wk 5, 26 October 2022, 5.00-6.30pm: Yathukulan Yogarajah (RAI) Elena Leber (RAI) The Tick Tock of Speculative Communities: Folk economies of online worlds

Wk 7, 9 November 2022, 5.00-6.30pm: Nikita Simpson (SOAS) Following frequencies of distress along socioeconomic inequalities in the Indian Himalaya

Wk 9, 23 November 2022, 5.00-6.30pm: Luke Heslop (Brunel) Iromi Perera (Colombo Urban Lab) Entrepreneurship in crisis: Credit economies and business advice in low-income urban Sri Lanka

Jointly organized by the Departments of International Development and Anthropology, this seminar series explores themes concerning the social life of the economy in its broadest sense.

Co-ordinators: Kate Meagher k.meagher@lse.ac.uk, Deborah James d.a.james@lse.ac.uk, Sohini Kar s.kar1@lse.ac.uk

This term sees an interesting set of broader events at 杏吧论坛: we are ‘piggybacking’ on two of them.

Week 2: More than money? How Anthropology can offer richer analysis for economists
Thursday 7 October 2021, 2-3.30pm

Gillian Tett and Deborah Rowland

Anthropology has often been seen as an academic version of Indiana Jones - namely a discipline devoted to exotic travel that does not have much relevance for the modern world. However, Gillian Tett argues that this image is completely wrong today, and anthropology can make a vital contribution to public policy, corporate and financial life, as well as our communities as we try to "build back better" after COVID-19. Indeed, she argues that a world drowning in Artificial Intelligence and other digital innovations desperately needs a second type of "AI" - Anthropology Intelligence - to enable us to flourish. But what does this mean for the economics profession? Could economists benefit by embracing this new type of AI? Gillian Tett will debate this with Deborah Rowland.

is chair of the editorial board and editor-at-large, US of the Financial Times. She writes weekly columns, covering a range of economic, financial, political and social issues. In 2014, she was named Columnist of the Year in the British Press Awards.

Deborah Rowland is a leading global thinker, speaker, writer, and coach in the field of leading big complex change. She is the co-author of Sustaining Change: Leadership That Works (Wiley, 2008), Still Moving: How to Lead Mindful Change (Wiley, 2017), and the Still Moving Field Guide: Change Vitality at Your Fingertips (Wiley 2020).

More information and to register for the event here. Questions about the event should be directed to d.patel20@lse.ac.uk.

For those who wish to get up to speed in advance of the event, Peter Tufano, the Dean of the University of Oxford’s Said Business School, Gillian about her book.

Week 7: Debt.
Friday 12th November

Keith Hart (Goldsmiths and 杏吧论坛 Emeritus Professor) & Maka Suarez (Princeton Institute of Advanced Studies Fellow).

This is one in a series of 杏吧论坛 Anthropology Research Seminars that explores the legacy of the thought of David Graeber, our late colleague. In each session, two anthropologists will lead a critical discussion on one of the key themes that interested him

Please sign up for this seminar here (and others in the series if you wish to)

Week 11: Financial inclusion as future - the future of financial inclusion
Thursday 9th December, 5-6.30pm

Chris Harker (Institute of Global Prosperity, UCL)

Chris is a longstanding member of the seminar group and author of the recent acclaimed monograph (2021: Duke University Press).

Departments of Anthropology and International Development, 杏吧论坛

When? Wed. fortnightly, 5.00-6.30 pm.
Where? Zoom/online

Jointly organized by the Departments of International Development and Anthropology, this seminar series explores themes concerning the social life of the economy in its broadest sense. During LT we will have 4 meetings to ranging in style from a panel discussion to seminar presentations on a variety of topic issues . Zoom links will be released shortly before each meeting. To be added to the mailing list in order to receive these, and to get a copy of the paper, contact k.meagher@lse.ac.uk.

LENT TERM

Wk 4, 11 Feb 2021 (Thursday 5pm): SPECIAL EVENT -- Coded Bias: Digital Bias and Decolonizing Development
Hellen Mukiri-Smith (Global Data Justice, Tilberg University) and Deborah James (Center for Econ and Policy Research, Washington DC)

Wk 5, 17 Feb 2021: Climate-resilient agriculture: what does it mean for rural development in India?
Marcus Taylor, (Queen’s University, Canada)

Wk 7, 3 March 2021: Digital Identity as a Platform for Improving Refugee Management
Shirin Madon, (杏吧论坛)

Wk 9, 17 March 2021: Alternative Economies
Mick Blowfield, (Oxford)

Co-ordinators: Kate Meagher k.meagher@lse.ac.uk, Deborah James d.a.james@lse.ac.uk, Sohini Kar s.kar1@lse.ac.uk

Departments of Anthropology and International Development, 杏吧论坛

When? Wed. fortnightly, 5.00-6.30 pm.

Where? Zoom/online

Jointly organized by the Departments of Anthropology and International Development, this seminar series explores themes concerning the social life of the economy in its broadest sense. During the MT we will meet fortnightly to discuss pre-circulated papers. Zoom links will be released shortly before each meeting. To be added to the mailing list in order to receive these, and to get a copy of the paper, contact d.a.james@lse.ac.uk.

MICHAELMAS TERM

Wk 3, 14 October 2020: Privatizing Cash: Battles over Currency Issuance in Sweden
Gustav Peebles, The New School

Wk 5, 28 October 2020: Generating something to capture: struggles around wealth (non)taxation in Austria
Andreas Streinzer, University of Frankfurt

Wk 7, 11th November 2020: special event - Launch of Johnny Parry’s book Classes of Labour
Chair: Alpa Shah
Discussants: Nate Roberts, University of Göttingen; Nayanika Mathur, Oxford University

Wk 8, 18November 2020: Tech for Food? Digital refugee economies and the changing relationship between displacement and labour
Andreas Hackl, University of Edinburgh

Wk 10, 2 December 2020: ‘Making plans through people’: the social embeddedness of informal entrepreneurship in urban South Africa
Hannah Dawson, Wits
and 'These Aren't The Jobs We Want': Youth, Place and Anti-Work Politics in Urban South Africa.
Christopher Webb, 杏吧论坛

Co-ordinators: Deborah James d.a.james@lse.ac.uk Sohini Kar s.kar1@lse.ac.uk Kate Meagher k.meagher@lse.ac.uk

CON 7.03 - Wed. Fortnightly, 5.00-6.30 pm.

Organized by Inclusive Economies Group, Department of International Development, in collaboration with the Anthropology of Economy programme in the Department of Anthropology, this seminar series explores how financialization is reshaping processes of development and economic inclusion. It will focus on specific domains of the financialization of development, including the financialization of infrastructure, agriculture, health, aid, and philanthropy. Within each of these various domains we seek a deeper examination of what financialization ‘does’ in terms of its micro as well as macro-effects on regulation, productive structures, livelihoods, resource distribution, social rights and political space. This seminar series seeks to unravel the implications of financialization for processes of economic inclusion, and consider how it is reconfiguring organizations, regulatory systems, linkages with the state, and forms of investment.

Seminar Schedule

LENT TERM

Wk 2, 29 January 2020: Caroline E. Schuster (Australian National University)*
The protective style: financializing security and damage in Paraguayan insurance markets

Wk 3, 5 February 2020: Leigh Johnson (University of Oregon)
Unmaking ‘risk capacity’: African sovereign drought insurance and its discontents

Wk 5, 19 February 2020: Stefan Ouma (University of Bayreuth)
Agriculture as Financial Asset: Global Money and the Making of Institutional Landscapes

Wk 7, 4 March 2020: Susan Erikson (Simon Fraser University)
Risk Business: How Pandemic Bonds Recalibrate Humanitarian Aid

Wk 9, 18 March 2020: Elisa van Waeyenberge (SOAS)
TBA

*Note that this ‘extra’ seminar will be held one week before the originally scheduled one in Wk 3.

Inclusive Economies/Anthropology of Economy Seminar Series

Financialization, Development and Economic Inclusion

Old Anthropology Library, 6th Floor, Old Building, Wed. Fortnightly, 5.00-6.30 pm

Presented by the Department of International Development and Department of Anthropology, this themed series of the Inclusive Economies/Anthropology of Economy Seminar explores how financialization is reshaping processes of development and economic inclusion. It focuses on specific domains of the financialization of development, including the financialization of infrastructure, water, agriculture, health, aid, and philanthropy. Within each of these various domains we seek a deeper examination of what financialization ‘does’ in terms of its micro as well as macro-effects on markets, regulation, production, and popular livelihoods. Presentations will unravel how financialization is reconfiguring regulatory systems and shaping the terms as well as the meaning of economic inclusion.

16 October 2019
Pon Souvannaseng (University of Manchester)
Fast Finance: Who Gives a Dam? Perils and Pitfalls of Asymmetric South-South Finance

30 October 2019
Kimberly Chong (UCL)
Building a Paradise: Financialization, Management consulting and post-Mao visions of transformation and expertise

13 November 2019
Kate Bayliss (SOAS)
The Financialisation of Water: From Natural Resource to Commercial Asset

27 November 2019
Zenia Kish (University of Tulsa)
The Invisible Heart of Markets: Ethics, Affect, and Impact Investors

杏吧论坛