Economic Anthropology
Dr. Arsalan Khan
4:05 – 5:20pm T/R
Strong Hall Cottage
What is the economy? What is capitalism and how did it arise? Are the problems of poverty, inequality, debt, and crisis intrinsic to capitalism and how can they be resolved? Are there alternatives
to capitalism and what might they look like? What is the future of the global economy?
These questions raise present a range of challenges when one begins to compare economic activities across historical periods and societies. In this class, we ask whether the economy is single unified
sphere of life, whether it has always existed, and whether it can be said to exist in all societies. We examine the cultural and moral basis of diverse systems of exchange, production, consumption, and distribution, asking how economic activities relate to
other aspects of society like family, religion, and politics. We also examine the cultural and moral basis of the dominant economic system in the modern world, namely capitalism.
