Introduction to Economic Anthropology

Harvard FAS

This course explores fundamental questions about economic life through an anthropological lens: What is a market, and how do different societies understand and practice exchange? How do gifts differ from commodities, and what happens when these categories blur? Why do some forms of exchange feel moral while others provoke discomfort? Through ethnographic studies spanning Melanesian gift economies to Wall Street trading floors, we examine how economic practices are deeply embedded in social…