Political and Economic Anthropology
Study Course Implementer
Dzirciema street 16, Rīga, szf@rsu.lv
About Study Course
Objective
Preliminary Knowledge
Learning Outcomes
Knowledge
1.After completing the course, students must: - be familiar with the key concepts of economic and political anthropology, - understand the nature of the academic debate in question, - be able to demonstrate an understanding of the main theoretical directions.
Skills
1.One must be able to apply the knowledge acquired to interpreting human behaviour in society. *One must be able to analyse and review the work of colleagues *One must know how to write an argumentative essay *One must know how to use references correctly (*note, these are the horizontal skills that are the focus of the independent work in this course)
Competences
1.To critically evaluate the theoretical and empirical material covered in this study course, use it to interpret and analyse other theoretical and empirical material, and apply it to practical problem solving and research.
Assessment
Individual work
Examination
Study Course Theme Plan
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Introduction to Political and Economic Anthropology, Brief Overview of the History of the Theory. An Insight Into the Classical Division: Hunters/Gatherers, Horticulturalists, Farmers.
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Where Economics and Politics Are Inseparable: Reciprocity and Gift Exchange.
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Reciprocity and Gift Exchange
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Analysis of a Literary Work (e.g. “Spēlēju, dancoju” by Rainis) From the Point of View of Exchange Theories
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Peacefulness and Cooperation
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How To Interpret Economic Processes, What Is an Economy? The Formalist-Substantivist Debate and Marxist Anthropology.
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Peaceful Societies
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The Formalist-Substantivist Debate
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Marxist Anthropology
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Anthropology of the State: What Is a State, the Making of a Citizen, State as Performance.
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Lecture “The State as Liquid Crystal, State and Phantoms, European State and Kinship” (the lecture is based on K. Sedlenieks’ recent publications)
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Is the State a Mechanism of Oppression or an Object of Longing?
Bibliography
Required Reading
Block, Maurice. 2004. Marxist analysis and social anthropology. London: Malaby Press.
Scott, James C. 2009. The art of not being governed: an anarchist history of upland Southeast Asia. New Haven: Yale University Press. (Jaunāks izdevums nav izdots)
Mauss, Marcel. 1966. The Gift: forms and functions of exchange in archaic societies. London: Routledge
Polanyi, Karl. 2001. The Great Transformation. Boston: Bacon Press.
Kottak, Conrad Phillip. 2021. "Chapter 7. Making a living". No Cultural anthropology: appreciating cultural diversity, 154-181. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Kottak, Conrad Phillip. 2021. "Chapter 8. Political systems". No Cultural anthropology: appreciating cultural diversity, 182-209. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Carrier, James G. 2022. A Handbook of Economic Anthropology. 3-ā red. Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781839108921.00031.
Malinowski, Bronislav. 2009. ‘The Essentials of the Kula’, in Argonauts of the Western Pacific, Chapter III, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 81-104
Sahlins, Marshall, D. 2004. ‘On the Sociology of Primitive Exchange’, in Michael Banton (ed.), The Relevance of Models for Social Anthropology, ASA Monographs I, London: Tavistock Publications, 139-86, 225-36
Laidlaw, James. 2000. ‘A Free Gift Makes no Friends‘, The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 6, No. 4. (Dec. 2000), pp. 617-634
Graeber, David. 2014. Debt: the first 5,000 years. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Melville House, chapter 5 ‘A brief treatise on the moral grounds of economic relations’, pp 89-126
Gregory, Chris A. 2012. “On money debt and morality: some reflections on the contribution of economic anthropology”. Social Anthropology 20 (4): 380–396. doi:10.1111/j.1469-8676.2012.00225.x.
Bonta, Bruce D. 1996. ‘Conflict Resolution Among Peaceful Societies: The Culture of Peacefulness’ Journal of Peace Research, vol 33, no. 4. 1996. pp 403-420.
Briggs, Jean L. 2000. ‘Conflict Management in a Modern Inuit Community’ in Peter P. Schweitzer, Megan Biesele and Robert K. Hitchkock (eds.) Hunters and gatherers in the Modern World: Conflict, resistance, and Self-Determination. New York and Oxford: Berhgahn Books. pp. 110-124
Turnbull, Colin M. 1978. 'The politics of non-aggression.' In Learning Non-aggression: The Experience of Non-literate Societies edited by Ashley Montagu. New York: Oxford University Press: 161-221
Overning, Joanna. 1989. ‘Styles of Manhood: an Amazonian contrast in tranquility and violence’ in Signe Howell and Roy Willis Societies at Peace: Anthropological Perspectives. London and New York: Routledge. Pp 79-99
Dobinson, Kristin. 2004. "A Model of Peacefulness: Rethinking Peace and Conflict in Norway". Lpp. 121–35 no Keeping the peace: conflict resolution and peaceful societies around the world, sagatavoja G. Kemp un D. P. Fry. New York: Routledge.
Fry, Douglas P., Geneviève Souillac, Larry Liebovitch, et all. 2021. “Societies within peace systems avoid war and build positive intergroup relationships”. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 8 (1) (18. decembrī): 1–17. doi:10.1057/s41599-020-00692-8.
Polanyi, Karl. 1957. 'The Economy as Instituted Process.' In Harry W Pearson, Conrad M Arensberg and Karl Polanyi (eds). Trade and Market in the Early Empires. Economies in History and Theory, 243-270. Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press.
Cook, Scott. 1966. The Obsolete "Anti-Market" Mentality: A Critique of the Substantive Approach to Economic Anthropology’ American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 68, No. 2, Part 1. (Apr., 1966), pp. 323-345.
Bohannan, Paul. 1955. ‘Some Principles of exchange and Investment among the Tiv’, American Anthropologist, 57, 60-70
Cimdiņa, Agnese. 2012. 'Lauku dzīves racionalitāte un kultūrsociālā iesakņotība.' Akadēmiskā Dzīve :48, pp. 35-45. (latviešu plūsmai)
Block, Maurice. 2004. 'Property and the End of Affiinty.' In Maurice Block (ed). Marxist analysis and social anthropology, 203-228. London: Malaby Press.
Meillassoux, Claude. 1981. Maidens, meal, and money: capitalism and the domestic community. New York: Cambridge University Press. ‘Introduction’ (pp xi-xiv) and ‘Domestic reproduction (pp 33-49.
Ortner, Sherry B. 2016. “Dark anthropology and its others Theory since the eighties”. Journal of Ethnographic Theory 6 (1): 47–73. doi:10.14318/hau6.1.004.
Althusser, Louis. 2001. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an Investigation)” No Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, 127-186 New York and London: Monthly Review Press
Beyer, Judith. 2014. ""There is this law..." Performing the State in the Kyrgyz Courts of Elders". No Ethnographies of the state in Central Asia:, sast. Madeleine Reeves u. c., 99–123. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Jansen, Stef. 2014. “Hope For/Against the State: Gridding in a Besieged Sarajevo Suburb”. Ethnos 79 (2): 238–260. doi:10.1080/00141844.2012.743469.
Mühlfried, Florian. 2014. Being a state and states of being in highland Georgia. Oxford, New York: Berghahn Books, chapter 2, pp 52-88
Sedlenieks, Klāvs. 2020. “Liquid crystal and the A1: densities of state from the perspective of a Montenegrin village”. Social Anthropology 28 (2): 496–511. doi:10.1111/1469-8676.12788.
Sedlenieks, Klāvs. 2020. “Phantom Rebellion: Performing the State in a Montenegrin Village and Beyond”. Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society 45 (1): 29–48.
Graeber, David un David Wengrow. 2021. The Dawn of Everything. A new History of Humanity. London: Penguin Random House UK., chapter 10 “Why the State Has No Origin. The humble beginnings of sovereignty, bureaucracy and politics”.
Additional Reading
Malinowski, Bronislav. 2009. ‘The Essentials of the Kula’, in Argonauts of the Western Pacific, Chapter III, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 81-104
Hann, Chris M un Keith Hart. 2013. "Introduction: Economic Anthropology". No Economic anthropology: history, ethnography, critique, 1–17. Cambridge, UK; Malden, MA: Polity Press.
Lewellen, Ted C. 2003. Political anthropology: an introduction. third edition. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.
Gregory, Chris A. 2015. Gifts and Commodities. London: Academic Press.
Fry, Douglas P. 2006. The human potential for peace: an anthropological challenge to assumptions about war and violence. New York: Oxford University Press, Chapters 13-15, pp 162-199
Sedlenieks, Klavs. 2013. “What do Latvian ‘peaceful peasants’ do? Peace system in a rural parish of Latvia”. Journal of Baltic Studies 45 (1): 57–78. doi:10.1080/01629778.2013.836832.