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Political and Economic Anthropology, all lectures (notes)

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Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU)

In this document you will find the notes I took during all the lectures of the subject Political and Economic Anthropology, given at the VU (cultural anthropology & several minors). It invloves parts of the powerpoints which were shown, as well as notes on the information our teachers have given us...

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political anthropology
economic anthropology
cultural anthropology
college aan
economic and political anthropology
political and economic anthropology
culturele antropologie en ontwikkelingssociologie

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Political and Economic anthropology
Lecture 1: introduction
05/09/2017
Today: Introduction to political anthropology
 The study of the political and politics

Political anthropology:
- Tries to understand, interpret and transmit the ideologies and circumstances of political
structure, organisation and action. These processes aren’t frozen in time and space, they’re
moving and evolving. This is what makes it different from hard and exact science like
mathematics. It is not precise, but is like life, always evolving and unpredictable. That is why
the study of processes is so important
- It tries to look at the political in a broad way of historical and cultural setting
- It’s a comparative study

We are important in the gaining of knowledge. The data of a research is a product of interaction, and
not all interaction is the same. So YOU as a researcher become part of the research.

How is economic and political anthropology connected?
The politics or the political, must not be treated as a separate domain or field, but must be
investigates as articulation between power relations, cultural processes, and historical trajectories.

The subfield of political anthropology emerged around the 1940’s. Politics was not the primary focus,
but was incidental, so that is why it became a subfield fairly late in the existence of anthropology.

There are 3 phases which can be recognised in anthropology’s relationship to politics
1. In the first phase (1850’s – 1939), anthropologies studies the political almost incidentally to
other interests
2. In the second phase (1940 – 1972) political anthropology developed a body of systematically
structures knowledge and a self-conscious discourse
3. In the third phase (from 1970 onwards), anthropology’s concern with power and
powerlessness with new theories like poststructuralism, postmodernism, and postcolonialism
on the scene

Genealogy (=explaining something from its roots/beginning) is not just a timeline
In its broadest sense, the anthropology of politics can be narrated in terms of an intellectual history
framed initially by British cultural hegemony over an Anglophone imperial world and then by the USA
cultural hegemony over a world system dominated by Cold War concerns. A critical turning point in
the sub-discipline came with the decline of empire and American defeat in the war in Vietnam.

Reification (Marx)= how we refine knowledge
Reinfication according to Wikipedia:
The thingification of social relations or of those involved in them, to the extent that the nature
of social relationships is expressed by the relationships between traded objects.
This implies that objects are transformed into subjects and subjects are turned into objects,
with the result that subjects are rendered passive or determined, while objects are rendered as
the active, determining factor.

,Political processes = the study of political processes illustrates how new kinds of political organization
and ideologies develop and how power changes hands, as well as how political structures and
political organization may be used to stabilize a social order, avoid or resolve conflicts and promote
general welfare, but they may also be used to contest prevailing political ideologies and change or
even destroy existing political systems.

Political organization is made up of:
- Power = the ability to exercise one’s will over others; you can force people to do something
which they would not have done otherwise.
- Authority = the socially approved or legitimate use of power
- Political ideology = the shared values and beliefs that legitimate the distribution and uses of
power and authority in a particular society
- Law = systematic application of force by a constituted authority in society

Modern political anthropology has had a shift in terms of how we think about power  power can be
amorphous and decentred rather than being centralized.

, Political and economic anthropology
Lecture 2: Thinking about economics and the economy anthropologically
07/09/2017

Economics: study that looks at human economic behaviour. It’s about the management of your
everyday life, in particular the financial aspects of it. It’s about production, consumption and
distribution.
The central theory in economics is that as individuals in a society, we would always behave rationally,
so always in a way that would maximize their profit and minimize their labour (= economic
rationalism). Consequentially, there is a focus on profit maximalisation as the ultimate goal.
 Rational is seen as maximizing profit and minimalizing labour. But humans have an infinite
amount of wants and needs and there only is a limited amount of these wants and needs
available to distribute. This causes tension and creates a market.
Economy: The norms governing production, distribution and consumption of goods and services
within a society.

There is tension about distribution: does the state decide of does the market (supply and demand)
decide?

A theory allows you to explain different social phenomena, but it is not absolute, it can change and
adapt.

An economic choice does not occur in a vacuum, but is also influenced by other things like moral,
social, political, etc. That is why there is economic anthropology; it doesn’t just look at economic
rationality but also at other factors that influence human behaviour. People make economic
decisions, embedded into other factors.
Economic anthropology is a critique of mainstream, economics: some economists claim a
special status for their discipline and locate it closer to hard sciences. Economic anthropology takes a
critical and historical vies of such claims. At the same time, it does not aim to offer a romantic,
utopian alternative to economics

Foucault: he called anthropology a ‘counter science’, not because it was less rational, but because it
flows in the opposite direction, always trying to ‘unmake’ the versions of man that human science like
economics insist on making.

Marcel Mauss is an anthropologist who is also regarded as an economic anthropologist with his work
The Gif. Gift giving is not just giving, but a way to develop and maintain social relationships (by
giving, accepting and reprocicating).

Karl Polanyi is also regarded as an economic anthropologist with his book The Great Transformation.
He talks about the market and its invisible hand in everything that is happening.

The Great Transformation according to Wikipedia
Polanyi contends that the modern market economy and the modern nation-state should be
understood not as discrete elements but as the single human invention he calls the "Market Society".
A distinguishing characteristic of the "Market Society" is that humanity's economic mentalities were
changed. Prior to the great transformation, people based their economies on reciprocity and
redistribution and were not rational utility maximisers. After the great transformation, people became
more economically rational, behaving as neoclassical economic theory would predict. The creation of
capitalist institutions not only changed laws but also fundamentally altered humankind's economic
mentalities, such that prior to the great transformation, markets played a very minor role in human
affairs and were not even capable of setting prices because of their diminutive size.

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