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ANT2004 Constructing Livelihoods

ANT2004  CONSTRUCTING LIVELIHOODS: THE SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS OF ECONOMIC LIFE

Module Convenor: Dr Keith Egan

Are we morally obligated to pay our debts? Is globalisation just shorthand for one-world capitalism? Do exchange behaviours and attitudes provide a cultural basis for societies to flourish? What is consumption and does everyone consume in the same fashion? This course tries to answer these questions and others by laying out both classical and current theoretical contributions from anthropology to help students understand some of the material and economic bases of social organisation in the world today. Building on a range of ethnographic case studies, we will examine how development and modernisation affect people in local settings and how people construct their own sense of the world in response. The course will explore the economic logics that drive globalisation and consumption, and take account of the moral foundations of economic production, distribution and exchange from local perspectives. We will investigate the complex relationship between economic realities such as ‘market forces’ and cultural realities such as ‘social reproduction’. We will consider the multi-sited, disjointed and often fractious ways in which people live and strive to secure their livelihoods in the face of global changes affecting nations around the world.