Class Description:    

This class studies the ECONOMIC and ECOLOGICAL aspects of human adaptation and cultural systems around the world, past to present.  We especially explore people's adaptations to land and resources, and the different survival strategies that people have fashioned in order to "make a living" in varying physical and social environments.

Topics for Study:

• Issues in Economic and Ecological Anthropology Theory
• Comparison of Production Strategies, especially focusing on human's adaptation and use of land/resources: Hunter-Gatherer; Horticulture; Pastoralism; Agriculture; Industrialism (including Industrial Agriculture).
• Forms of Exchange: Reciprocity, redistribution and market exchange; subsistence economies and command economies; trade and marketplaces; the formal and informal economy.
• Household and community economics in small-scale societies/communities. Issues for study: generalized (or multiple) livelihood strategies versus specialized livelihood strategies; risk and decision-making; land tenure; inter-household exchange; community structures of socio-economic support.
• Political economy: development of the modern world economic system; economic structure of colonialism & dependency theories; issues in economic development.
• Effects of development and globalization on economies and environments around the world.
• Current/future emphases in economic anthropology.

Photo above: Economic Anthropology students learning about farm family livelihood strategies.
 

Author: Mary B. LaLone, mlalone@radford.edu 
Radford University
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