| Semester | Fall Semester, 2023 | ||
| Department | Sophomore Class of Department of Ethnology Junior Class of Department of Ethnology | ||
| Course Name | Ethnological Economics | ||
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| Credit | 3.0 | ||
| Course Type | Selectively | ||
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Department of Ethnology 民族經濟 An Introduction to Economic Anthropology
Fall 2023 Thursday 9:00-12:00 Location: 教室在綜合院館General Building of Colleges 270109 Syllabus (Last Updated 11/30/2023) Please note that this syllabus is subject to change during the semester. Always check Moodle for the most recent update.
Instructor: Derek Sheridan (謝力登) E-Mail:dsheridan@gate.sinica.edu.tw Office Hours: Thursday 14:00-16:00, please make an appointment ahead of time.
Course Description What is economic anthropology, and how is it different from the discipline of economics? One answer, the answer that this class is based on, is this: “economic transactions are always already social relations” (Ho 2021). This means they are also political relations, moral relations, ecological relations, and also cosmological relations. A century of ethnographic research and anthropological theory has long challenged the assumptions of mainstream economics that people start as self-maximizing individuals and only enter into relationships to “trade and barter.” On the other hand, to say that economic transactions are always already relational and social, or that many peoples engage in “moral economies” does not mean these are necessarily equitable or devoid of self-interest. Furthermore, the world has long been interconnected, especially over the last few centuries, within global capitalism. Capitalism is also a form of relationality, but how is it different or similar to non-capitalist relations? In this class, we will examine the relationality of economic life at multiple scales, across times, and across geographical locations and cultural contexts. We will address key concepts such as exchange, production, labor, commodification, gender, land, racialization, infrastructure, colonialism, development, debt, inequality, value, and the work of nature. Through readings, discussion, films, guest speakers, fieldtrips, and participatory ethnographic work, students will learn to see the “economy” in terms of its social, political, ecological, and ethical stakes, and consider how economic anthropology sheds insights on the problem of living and surviving together on the same planet.
Goals and Learning Outcomes: -Understand the distinct approaches to the “economic” offered by anthropology. -Understand the social, political, and ethical implications of economic relations. -Understand the meaning, significance and application of concepts like “the gift,” “capitalism”, “value,” “distribution” and “debt” -Understand the relation between the state and ethnic groups in terms of capitalism and development -Understand the cultural bases for movements seeking economic justice and livelihoods.
Course Requirements and Evaluation: Weekly Discussion Questions and Participation 30 pts. Based on your reading of the assigned texts, submit a discussion question each week by 5 pm on the Wednesday before the class (25 pts). You will also work with a fellow student to open and lead a discussion later in the semester (5 pts). When grading for participation, I will also consider overall class participation in the event of any missed assignments (i.e. Discussion questions). Fieldwork Assignments 20 pts. You will be asked to conduct several short field assignments over the course of the semester. These will be interviews and auto-ethnographic assignments intended to help you understand the readings in relation to the world(s) around you. Mid-Term Assignment 20 pts Final Paper (Including Presentation) 30 pts.
"What's a discussion question?" You are expected to read the assigned readings and be ready to discuss them in class. To facilitate discussion, I ask everyone to post a short response to the reading on the class website discussion board by 5PM the night before class. These responses should pose questions which directly engage the major arguments and/or examples provided by the author(s). They may address something you find particularly interesting, surprising, confusing, or frustrating about the reading. In each case, be sure to elaborate your points with reference to the text. The goal of the exercise is to help us pose good discussion questions, and this means that even if your response is more of a comment than a question, you should think about the question your comment poses for discussion. It should not demand knowledge beyond the readings and it should not produce a simple yes/no answer. Rather, it pursues clarification or exploration by posing a question that takes you deeper into the text. Not every discussion question has a clear answer—most don’t—nor do most take a debate format (i.e., posing contrasting positions and asking people to argue them). Most discussion questions can be posed in a sentence but might require an additional sentence or two of explication, contextualization or follow-up. Also, it is helpful to refer to specific keywords or page numbers to guide fellow readers to key passages in the texts or ideas raised in lecture.
Discussion Leading Starting later in the semester, two students will be asked each session to lead the beginning of class discussion. This means preparing beforehand to offer some reflections on the reading and to pose some discussion questions for the class. These should be collaborative and the “presentation” part of it should last no more than 5-8 minutes. I will pass around sign-up sheet the week before, but if there are topics you are particularly interested in, you may let me know earlier.
Final Paper You will apply the themes, questions, approaches, and/or research methods from the course to understand a case study of your own choosing. The case study should be something of personal interest to you, but it should broadly concern the themes of the course: particularly the social, cultural, and/or political meanings of a concrete "economic" phenonomon or situation. The case study should involve original research outside the class materials. There is flexibility regarding the kind of materials you can use. You might chose a case that involves reading relevant articles and/or books. Or you might conduct your own research through interviews or participant observation. Or you might analyze particular forms of media. You may also draw on the fieldwork assignments for inspiration, provided that you expand on them. When writing the paper, you should draw on the course themes, readings, and discussions to interpret or compare the data.
You should begin thinking about topics of interest from the start of the course, but must submit a half-page proposal to me by Week 13 (12/7) so I can review and approve the topic, and offer any relevent suggestions.
On Week 17 (1/4), you will be asked to deliver a short presentation on your topic in class. Don’t stress. The goal is to share ideas and get feedback, and not to be graded on presentation. The paper itself should be 10 Pages, Double-Spaced, Times New Roman; or about 2,500 Words (English), or 4,000 Words (Chinese).
Academic Integrity You are expected to be honest in all of your academic work. Allegations of alleged academic dishonesty will be forwarded to the administration. Sanctions for academic dishonesty can include failing grades and/or suspension from the university. All work must be properly cited. Please see https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html
With the inauguration of large language model AI systems, we are in a brave new world whose pedagogical challenges and possibilities are still being explored. We will explore together how AI can enhance education, but it’s your responsibility to decide how this class will contribute to your education and your own abilities to think and articulate ideas about the world around you.
Students with extra challenges If you are a student with a documented disability at NCCU and if you wish to request a reasonable accommodation for this class, please see me immediately. Keep in mind that reasonable accommodations are not provided retroactively.
Language The official language of the course is in English. Discussion questions should be written in English, but may occasionally be written in Chinese if you have a good question, but are still looking for the best way to articulate it in English. The mid-term paper should be written in English, but the final paper may be written in either English or Chinese.
The Academic Word List https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/wordlist/american_english/academic/sublist01/
Course Schedule and Requirements: Note: The course content is arranged for the full 18-week semester. Each week contains one section for three hours.
9/14 Week 1: Course Overview and Introduction
9/21 Week 2: Economic Relations as Social Relations • Graeber, David. 2011. “A Brief Treatise on the Moral Grounds of Economic Relations” In Debt: The First 5,000 Years. Brooklyn, NY: Melville House, 2011
Supplementary readings: • Graeber, David. 2011. “The Myth of Barter” In Debt: The First 5,000 Years
9/28 Week 3: Gifts and Reciprocity • Mauss, Marcel. 1925. “The Exchange of Gifts and the Obligation to Reciprocate.” In The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies. Translated by Ian Cunnison. W. W. Norton, 1990.
** DUE week 3: Fieldwork Assignment #1 Chose one room in your home, or the home of a relative, and make an inventory of all the objects found within.. Then, identify where each object came from. Who gave it to you? How are you related to that person? Who produced the object? Will you give this object to someone else? Why or why not?
Supplementary readings: • Mauss, Marcel. 1925. “The Extension of this System” and “Conclusion” In The Gift
• Gudeman, Stephen. 2015. “Mutuality and Connections” In Anthropology and Economy
10/5 Week 4: Capitalism • Marx, Karl and Friedreich Engels. 1848. The Communist Manifesto. (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/)
Supplementary readings: • Marx, Karl. 1867. “The Commodity” In Capital.
10/12 Week 5: The Commodification of Value • Hutchinson, Sharon E. 1996. “Blood, Cattle, and Cash: The Commodification of Nuer Values” In Nuer Dilemmas: Coping with Money, War, and the State. University of California Press.
10/19 Week 6: Gender and Labor • Lee, Anru. 2004. “Between Filial Daughter and Loyal Sister” In Women in the New Taiwan. M.E. Sharpe.
Recommended Reading:
** DUE week 6: Fieldwork Assignment #2 Interview someone from the elder generation in your home or community regarding the history of their career. They may be a parent, grandparent, uncle, aunt, or older friend. How did they earn a living over the course of their lives, what kinds of jobs did they do, why did they change jobs? How has economic life in Taiwan (or their past homes) changed over the course of their lives?
10/26 Week 7: Property and Human-Land Relations
Supplementary Readings:
11/2 Week 8: Economic Relations as Ecological Relations
Supplementary Readings:
11/9 Week 9: Mid-Term (No Class)
** DUE week 9: Mid-Term Assignment by 11/10 (Friday) at 11:59 PM
11/16 Week 10: Racial Capitalism • Byler, Darren. 2022. “The Social Life of Terror Capitalism Technologies in Northwest China.” Public Culture 34(2): 167-193.
Supplementary reading: • Byler, Darren. 2022. “The Camp Fix: Infrastructural Power and the “Re-education Labour Regime” in Turkic Muslim Industrial Parks in North-west China.” The China Quarterly: 1-16.
11/19 (Sunday) Field Trip to Taiwan International Workers Association (TIWA) and “Little Manila” https://tiwa.org.tw/ (Further details TBA)
11/23 Week 11: Development and Post-Colonial Economies • Nyerere, Julius K. 1967. The Arusha Declaration. (https://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/nyerere/1967/arusha-declaration.htm)
11/30 Week 12: Indigenous Economies
Supplementary Reading:
12/7 Week 13: The Labor of Distribution • Ferguson, James. 2015. “Distributed Livelihoods: Dependence and the Labor of Distribution in the Lived of the Southern African Poor (and Not-so-Poor).” In Give a Man a Fish: Reflections on the New Politics of Distribution. Duke University Press.
Supplementary reading: • Ferguson, James. 2015. “From Patriarchal Productionism to the Revalorization of Distribution.” In Give a Man a Fish: Reflections on the New Politics of Distribution. • Ferguson, James. 2015. “Declarations of Dependence: Labor, Personhood, and Welfare in Southern Africa.” In Give a Man a Fish: Reflections on the New Politics of Distribution. • Ferguson, James. 2015. “A Rightful Share: Distribution beyond Gift and Market.” In Give a Man a Fish: Reflections on the New Politics of Distribution. • Nilsen, Alf Gunvald. 2021. "Give James Ferguson a Fish." Development and Change 52(1): 3-25.
** DUE week 13: Proposal for Final Paper
12/14 Week 14: Informal Economies • Sheridan, Derek. 2022. "“We Are Now the Same”: Chinese Wholesalers and the Politics of Trade Hierarchies in Tanzania." The China Quarterly 250: 376-396.
** DUE week 14: Fieldwork Assignment #3 Participant observation.
12/21 Week 15: Neoliberal Subjectivities • Qian Linliang. 2023. The ‘Good’Neoliberalism: E-Commerce Entrepreneurship and the Search for a Good Life in China. The Asia-Pacific Journal of Anthropology 24(3): 216-233
Film Screening: Hengdan Dreaming (2019, dir. Shayan Momin)
12/28 Week 16: Looking again at Economic Anthropology from the perspective of More-than-Human Relations
•Sophie Chao. 2021. The Beetle or the Bug? Multispecies Politics in a West Papuan Oil Palm Plantation. American Anthropologist. 123(3): 476-489.
•Sophie Chao and Dion Enari. 2021. Decolonising Climate Change: A Call for Beyond Human Imaginaries and Knowledge Generation. eTropic: electronic journal of studies in the tropics
•Yu Luo & Yufang Gao. 2020. In the wake of the China-Africa ivory trade: morethan-human ethics across borders. Social and Cultural Geography.
1/4 Week 17: Presentations
1/11 Week 18: Wrap up ***Due in class: Final exam**
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Course Requirements and Evaluation: Weekly Discussion Questions and Participation 30 pts. Based on your reading of the assigned texts, submit a discussion question each week by 5 pm on the Wednesday before the class (25 pts). You will also work with a fellow student to open and lead a discussion later in the semester (5 pts). When grading for participation, I will also consider overall class participation in the event of any missed assignments (i.e. Discussion questions). Fieldwork Assignments 20 pts. You will be asked to conduct several short field assignments over the course of the semester. These will be interviews and auto-ethnographic assignments intended to help you understand the readings in relation to the world(s) around you. Mid-Term Assignment 20 pts Final Paper (Including Presentation) 30 pts.
"What's a discussion question?" You are expected to read the assigned readings and be ready to discuss them in class. To facilitate discussion, I ask everyone to post a short response to the reading on the class website discussion board by 5PM the night before class. These responses should pose questions which directly engage the major arguments and/or examples provided by the author(s). They may address something you find particularly interesting, surprising, confusing, or frustrating about the reading. In each case, be sure to elaborate your points with reference to the text. The goal of the exercise is to help us pose good discussion questions, and this means that even if your response is more of a comment than a question, you should think about the question your comment poses for discussion. It should not demand knowledge beyond the readings and it should not produce a simple yes/no answer. Rather, it pursues clarification or exploration by posing a question that takes you deeper into the text. Not every discussion question has a clear answer—most don’t—nor do most take a debate format (i.e., posing contrasting positions and asking people to argue them). Most discussion questions can be posed in a sentence but might require an additional sentence or two of explication, contextualization or follow-up. Also, it is helpful to refer to specific keywords or page numbers to guide fellow readers to key passages in the texts or ideas raised in lecture.
Discussion Leading Starting later in the semester, two students will be asked each session to lead the beginning of class discussion. This means preparing beforehand to offer some reflections on the reading and to pose some discussion questions for the class. These should be collaborative and the “presentation” part of it should last no more than 5-8 minutes. I will pass around sign-up sheet the week before, but if there are topics you are particularly interested in, you may let me know earlier.
Final Paper You will apply the themes, questions, approaches, and/or research methods from the course to understand a case study of your own choosing. The case study should be something of personal interest to you, but it should broadly concern the themes of the course: particularly the social, cultural, and/or political meanings of a concrete "economic" phenonomon or situation. The case study should involve original research outside the class materials. There is flexibility regarding the kind of materials you can use. You might chose a case that involves reading relevant articles and/or books. Or you might conduct your own research through interviews or participant observation. Or you might analyze particular forms of media. You may also draw on the fieldwork assignments for inspiration, provided that you expand on them. When writing the paper, you should draw on the course themes, readings, and discussions to interpret or compare the data.
You should begin thinking about topics of interest from the start of the course, but must submit a half-page proposal to me by Week 13 (12/7) so I can review and approve the topic, and offer any relevent suggestions.
On Week 17 (1/4), you will be asked to deliver a short presentation on your topic in class. Don’t stress. The goal is to share ideas and get feedback, and not to be graded on presentation. The paper itself should be 10 Pages, Double-Spaced, Times New Roman; or about 2,500 Words (English), or 4,000 Words (Chinese).
Academic Integrity You are expected to be honest in all of your academic work. Allegations of alleged academic dishonesty will be forwarded to the administration. Sanctions for academic dishonesty can include failing grades and/or suspension from the university. All work must be properly cited. Please see https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html
With the inauguration of large language model AI systems, we are in a brave new world whose pedagogical challenges and possibilities are still being explored. We will explore together how AI can enhance education, but it’s your responsibility to decide how this class will contribute to your education and your own abilities to think and articulate ideas about the world around you.
Students with extra challenges If you are a student with a documented disability at NCCU and if you wish to request a reasonable accommodation for this class, please see me immediately. Keep in mind that reasonable accommodations are not provided retroactively.
Language The official language of the course is in English. Discussion questions should be written in English, but may occasionally be written in Chinese if you have a good question, but are still looking for the best way to articulate it in English. The mid-term paper should be written in English, but the final paper may be written in either English or Chinese.
The Academic Word List https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/wordlist/american_english/academic/sublist01/
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