The Anthropology of Capitalism: Gender, Race, Kinship

In this course, we will focus on how large scale economic and demographic transformations relate to race, gender, sexuality. Our class will begin from the premise that politics of social difference are central, rather than peripheral, to transnational capitalism, and we will challenge the idea of the “economic” as a bounded and predetermined domain. Throughout our class, we will examine how race, gender, and sexuality connect to economic and demographic change through topics such as kinship, care, health, labor and exchange across contexts like the US, South Korea, Chile, Kenya and elsewhere. Looking to ethnographic scholarship and media, we will ask not only how market reforms shape subjectivities, desires, and everyday life but also how people work to resist and reimagine these conditions in return. There are no prerequisites to this course.