Anthropology 349: Anthropology of Capitalism Autumn 2014 Professor Sylvia Yanagisako Office Hours: Thursday 2-4 p.m. Bldg. 50, Room 51-F email: syanag@stanford.edu This advanced graduate seminar explores capitalism as an historically-situated and culturally- ‘mediated articulation of practices rather than as an economic system or social structure governed by an internal logic. It draws on poststructural theories of culture, society and subjectivity to investigate the processes through which diverse capitalist practices and their effects are produced. Prerequisi is permitted, 's: Graduate standing in Anthropology or permission of the instructor. No auditing Course Requirements and Grades: The course requires close reading and critical engagement with the required texts, Class time will be devoted to discussion of the readings and the issues, questions, and dilemmas they raise. Its crucial that students come to class having done all the required readings. Commentaries on readings: (25% of grade) Students are required to submit five critical commentaries on the readings, each of which covers all the readings for the week. These commentaries should be 3-4 pages (double-spaced); they should not summarize the readings but critically respond to their key arguments and raise questions for discussion, Commentaries must be distributed by email to everyone in the class by 6 p.m. the evening before the class in which the readings are to be discussed. Commentaries will not be graded, but you will be informed if and how they need improvement Contribution to classroom discussion: (20% of grade) Students are expected to actively contribute to classroom discussion. This includes raising questions and issues, listening to, supporting and encouraging other students, being open to other perspectives and being willing to consider alternate interpretations and arguments, discuss disagreements, and explore quandaties. Missing more than one class session (other than because of illness) will result in a reduction in the final grade. Final paper: (55% of grade). 10-12 pages (double-spaced). The final paper should be an analytical essay that draws on readings from at least two of the topics in the syllabus. It should present a coherent argument that speaks to a key conceptual and/or methodological issue in the anthropological study of capitalism. A 2-3 page prospectus of the final paper is due on. November 21 at 5:00 p.m. The final paper is due on December I at 5:00 p.m. Required Readings: Four required books are available for purchase at the Stanford bookstore. Alll other readings are available at hitp://coursework.stanford.edu!Karl Polanyi. 2001 [orig 1944]. The Great Transformation: the political and economic origins of our time. Forward by Joseph Stiglitz, introduction by Fred Block. Beacon Press, 2nd Beacon paperback. ISBN 0-8070-5643-x Karen Ho. 2009. Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street. Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-4599-2 Jane Guyer. 2004. Marginal Gains: Monetary Transactions in Atlantic Africa, University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-31116-3 Tania Murray Li, 2014. Land's End: Capitalist Relations on an Indigenous Frontier. Duke University Press. ISBN: 978-0-8223-5705-6 Recommended Reading: It is assumed that you have already done some reading of Karl Marx. and Max Weber. Knowledge of their contributions to the analysis of capitalism is crucial to understanding the required readings in this course. If you have not read these authors, you should read: By October 14: Karl Marx. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Volume One (I prefer the Penguin Classic edition 1990). Introduction by Ernest Mandel. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-044568-8 but other editions are fine}. Chapter 1: The Commodity Chapter 4: The General Formula for Capital Chapter 6: The Sale and Purchase of Labour Power Chapter 7: The Labour Process and the Valorization Process By October 28: Max Weber. 1976 (1958). The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. translated by Talcott Parsons. Charles Scribner's Sons. ISBN 0-684-16489-2 If you have little background to the history of capitalism, I recommend you read: James Fulcher. 2004. Capitalism: a Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-280218-6 CASA 349: Schedule of Classes and Readings Autumn 2014 Sept. 23: Introduction to the course: course goals, focus, requirements. Sept. 30: Economy and Society: Polanyi and the Critique of Market Fundament: m. Karl Polanyi. 2001 [orig. 1944] The Great Transformation: the political and economic origins of our time. Beacon Press. Read: Chapters 1-6; 11-21Mark Granovetter. 1985, “Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness.” American Journal of Sociology 91 (3): 481-510. Recommended reading: Fred Block. 2003. "Karl Polanyi and the Writing of The Great Transformation.” Theory and Society 32:275-306. Michael Burawoy, 2003. "For a Sociological Marxism: The Complementary Convergence of Antonio Gramsci and Karl Polanyi." Politics & Society 31 (2): 193-261 Albert O. Hirschman 1982. Rival interpretations of market society: civilizing, destructive of feeble? J. Economic Literature 20: 1463-84 Oct. 7: Culture and Economy: The Economies of the Economy Michel Callon. 1998 “Introduction: the Embeddedness of Economie Markets in Economies.” The Laws of the Markets, edited by M. Callon, pp. 1-68. Oxford: Blackwell. Marie-France Garcia-Parpet. 2007. “The Social Construction of a Perfect Market: The ‘Strawberry Auction at Fontaines-en-Sologne.” In: Do Economists Make Markets? edited by Donald MacKenzie, et al. Princeton University Press. pp. 20-53. Daniel Miller. 2002. “Turning Callon the right way up.” Eeon, Sociol. 31:218-33. Koray Caliskan and Michel Callon. “Economization, part 1: shifting attention from the economy towards processes of economization.” Economy and Society, volume 38, no. 3. Pp. 369-398 Recommended reading: Michel Callon 2005. “Why virtualism paves the way to political impotence: a reply to Daniel Miller's critique of the Laws of the Markets.” Econ, Sociol; Eur. Eletron. Newsl. 6: 3-20 Donald MacKenzie, 2006. An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial Models Shape Markets. Cambridge: MIT Press, Timothy Mitchell. 2005. The work of economics: how a: discipline makes its world. Eur, J. Soe, 46: 297-320, Oct. 14: Labor, Class, and Culture Moishe Postone. 1993. Time, Labor and Social Domination. University of Chicago Press. Chapter 1 Dipesh Chakrabarty. 2000. Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference. Princeton University Press. Introduction and chapter 2 [The Two Histories of Capital] Laura Bear. 2013. “This Body is Our Body”: Vishwakarma Puja, the Social Debts of Kinship, and Theologies of Materiality in a Neoliberal Shipyard. In: Vital Relations: Modernity and thePersistent Life of Kinship, edited by Susan McKinnon and Fenella Cannell, Santa Fe: SAR Press. Recommended Reading: Karl Marx. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume One [I prefer the Penguin Classic edition, but other editions are fine] Chapter 1: The Commodity Chapter 4: The General Formula for Capital Chapter 6: The Sale and Purchase of Labour Power Chapter 7: The Labour Process and the Valorization Process E.P. Thompson. 1968. The Making of the English Working Class. Penguin wakrabarty, Dipesh. 1989. Rethinking Working Class History: Bengal 18980-1940. Princeton University Press, Oct. 24; Agrarian Transitions Tania Murray Li. 2014. Land's End: Capitalist Relations on an Indigenous Frontier. Duke University Press. Dipesh Chakrabarty, 1988. “Class Consciousness and the Indian Working Class: Dilemmas of Marxist Historiography.” Journal of Asian and African Studies volume 23: 21-31 Oct. 28: Sentiments and Emotions as Forces of Production Albert O. Hirschman. 1977. The Passions and the Interests: Political Ar -guments for Capitalism before Its Triumph, Princeton University Press. parts 1 and 2. Emma Rothschild, 2001. Economic Sentiments: Adam Smith, Condorcet and the Enlightenment, Harvard University press. selections Sylvia Yanagisako. 2002. Producing Culture and Capital: Family Firms in Italy. Princeton University Press. Chapters 1, 3, 6 Recommended Reading: Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism, Elana Shever 2008, “Neoliberal Associations: Property, company and family in the Argentine oil fields.” American Ethnologist vol. 35 (4) : pp. 701-716. Nov. 4: Commodities and Value Arjun Appadurai: 1986, The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective. Cambridge University Press, Chapter 1. pp. 3-63. Igor Kopytoff. 1986. "The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization as Process." In: The Social Life of Things, Pp. 64-91William Mazzarella. 2003. “Very Bombay": Contending with the Global in an Indian Advertizing Agency.” Cultural Anthropology 18 (1): 33-71 Recommended reading: Robert J. Foster. 2004. "Commodities and Value in Motion: Tracking Globalization.” In: The Handbook of Material Culture, edited by C. Tilley et al. London: Sage. Nov. 11: Ethnographic approaches to finance Karen Ho. 2009. Liquidated: an Ethnography of Wall Street. Duke University Press. Recommended Reading: Donald MacKenzie, 2007. “Is Economics Performative? Option Theory and the Construction of Derivatives Markets.” In: Do Economists Make Markets? edited by Donald MacKenzie, et al. Princeton University Press. pp. 54-86. Ellen Hertz. 1998. The Trading Crowd: An Ethnography of the Shanghai Stock Market. Cambridge University Press. selections Nov, 18: Spheres of Exchange, Money, and Wealth Jane Guyer. 2004. Marginal Gains: Monetary Transactions in Atlantic Africa. University of Chicago Press. Jessica R. Cattelino. 2009. Fungibility: Florida Seminole Casino Dividends and the Fiscal Politics of Indigeneity. American Anthropologist vol. 111, issue 2: 190-200. Janet Roitman. 2003. Unsanetioned Wealth; or, the Productivity of Debt in Northern Cameroon, Public Culture 15 (2): 211-237. Recommended Reading: Paul Bohannan, 1955. Some Principles of Exchange and Investment among the Tiv: American Anthropologist, Vol. 57, No. 1, Part 1: pp. 60-70 James Ferguson. 1992. “The cultural topography of wealth: Commodity paths and the structure of property in rural Lesotho. American Anthropologist 94: 55-73. Nov. 21: a 2-3 page prospectus of the final paper is due on November 21 by Sylvia) 0 p.m. (email to Nov, 25: Thanksgiving break: no class Monday, Dec. 1; Audit Cultures (Note that because of the AAA Meetings this class will be held on Monday; we will find a time when everyone can attend).Lampland, Martha 2010. “False numbers as formalizing practices.” Social Studies of Science volume 40 (3): 377-404. Sage Publishing co. Kipnis, Andrew. 2008. Audit Cultures: Neoliberal Governmentality, Socialist Legacy or Technologies of Governing? American Ethnologist 35 (2) 275-289. Laura Bear. Nd. “The Antinomies of Audit: Opacity, Instability and Charisma in the Economic Governance of a Hooghly Shipyard.” Recommended reading: Hoskins, K.W. & Macve, R.H, 1988. The genesis of accountability: a genealogy of disciplinary power. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 13 (91) 37-73. Miller, P. & O*Leary. T. 1987. Accounting and the construction of a governable person. Accounting, Organizations and Society (12) 3: Paolo Quattrone. 2009. “Books to be Practiced: Memory. the Power of the Visual and the Success of Accounting.” Accounting, Organizations and Society 34; 85-118. December 11 at 5:00 p.m. Final paper is due (email to Sylvia)