Programme in anthropology and economy

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 2021

Departments of International Development and Anthropology, LSE

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, (LSE)

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

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