TOPICS IN ANTHROPOLOGY: MONEY AND FINANCE ANTH 5322, Fall 2015

Transcription

1 TOPICS IN ANTHROPOLOGY: MONEY AND FINANCE ANTH 5322, Fall 2015 Lecture: Tuesday 15:30-17:15, NAH 12 Tutorial: Tuesday 17:30-18:15, NAH 12 Teacher: Dr. Ho Cheuk-Yuet Tutor: Ms. Teresa Lin This course aims to introduce students to an anthropological understanding of money and finance, in relations to the dyads of state and market, credit and debt, risk and uncertainty, rationality and morality. We will trace the history of money and credit and understand their associations with societal changes. We will examine whether or not capital has become a profound determinant of the singularity of value and how the global financial crisis has been engendered by the cultural practices of the market and professional financiers. Conventionally, anthropological studies of the economic practices of everyday life have tended to focus on the realms of production, exchange, and consumption. The global financial market s recent two systemic collapses in the late 1990s and 2000s, however, demonstrated critically that investments and capital flows have constituted an essential, even dominant part of economic activities in the contemporary era of financial capitalism. Some recent ethnographic studies also revealed how financial assets and the practice of financial professionals have intricately overwhelmed everybody s ordinary lives both those near and far from the heartland of financial operations. Hence, the financial system is all too very real and concrete to warrant our serious inquiry, as it increasingly underwrites the terms of material wealth and human suffering, yet inseparable from the broader social relationality and cultural configurations. Course Objectives 1)Gain an understanding of the historical and cultural engendering of money and financialization. 2)Comprehend the intricateness and mundaneness of financial practices by way of ethnographic insights. 3)Prepare oneself for the next financial crisis (!) epistemologically and mentally. 1

2 Course Grading 1) Tutorial participation 10% 2) Three review papers and leading tutorial discussions 45% 3) Final paper (due Dec. 5) 45% Tutorial participation: Ask thoughtful questions and answer logically and imaginatively. Review papers: Discuss and critique TWO (or more) of the prescribed or recommended readings. One review paper should be chosen from between week 2 and week 5, one from between week 6 and week 9, and one from between week 10 and week 13. Relate the reading materials and your review thematically and coherently. The papers should be FOUR pages (single-spaced, font size 12; around 2,000 words) and submitted in class. Final paper: Choose one from the following topics (or with your own preferred, creative adaptions). The paper should be EIGHT pages (single-spaced, font size 12; around 4,000 words) and submitted by hand on or before Dec. 5. Grading criteria: ethnographic content 35% relevance to course materials 30% writing skills and insights 35% Suggested topics: 1. The social life of Bitcoin or Octopus. 2. Credit is the source of happiness for young people or Poverty is caused by a lack of credit. Discuss and critique. 3. Why do stock prices always fluctuate so violently? Discuss this as a socio-cultural phenomenon. 4. Is there a patrimonial middle class emerging in China? Discuss and analyze its social implications. 5. Financial value is abstract and opposed to our social-moral values. Do you agree? Students are required by university policy to submit soft copies of all papers to VeriGuide ( 2

3 Sept. 8 (WK 1): Introduction Why and how anthropologists study money and finance. Why finance needs anthropological insights. BBC Pop-Up Ideas: Gillian Tett on the Anthropology of Finance. Hart, Keith Contemporary Research on the Anthropology of Money and Finance. Krippner, Greta What is Financialization? In Capitalizing on Crisis: The Political Origins of the Rise of Finance, pp Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. HKU K927 c24 Piketty, Arthur The Capital/Income Ratio over the Long Run. In Capital in the Twenty-First Century, pp , translated by Arthur Goldhammer. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press. HB501.P43613 Sept. 15 (WK2): A Brief History of Money Commodity money, paper money, virtual money, and the economic life. Money as a unit of account, a means of exchange, a store of value, and capital for investment. Graeber, David The Myth of Barter. In Debt: The First 5,000 Years, pp New York: Melville House. HG3701.G73 Hart, Keith Heads or Tails? Two Sides of the Coin. Man 21 (4): Weatherford, Jack Introduction; Cannibals, Chocolate and Cash. In The History of Money: From Sandstone to Cyberspace, pp. 1 14, New York: Three Rivers Press. HG231.W4 Sept. 22 (WK3): Money, Sociality, and Morality Representation and fictionality of money as a fundamental element in social life, state building, and the constitution of a world society. Dickinson, Jennifer Changing Money in Post-Soviet Ukraine. In Money: Ethnographic Encounters, edited by Stefan Senders and Allison Truitt, pp Oxford: Berg. Online access 3

4 Parry, Jonathan, and Maurice Bloch Money and the Morality of Exchange. In Money and Morality of Exchange, edited by Jonathan Parry and Maurice Bloch, pp Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. GN450.M66 Shore, Cris The Euro Crisis and European Citizenship. Anthropology Today 28(2): 5 9. Shao, Jing Fluid Labor and Blood Money: The Economy of HIV/AIDS in Rural Central China. Cultural Anthropology 21: Sept. 29 (WK4): The Credit-Debt Nexus Debt as a fundamental feature of all human relations. The reciprocity and morality of the indissoluble dyads of credit and debt, creditors and debtors. Graeber, David A Brief Treatise on the Moral Grounds of Economic Relations. In Debt: The First 5,000 Years, pp New York: Melville House. HG3701.G73 Gregory, Chris On Money Debt and Morality: Some Reflections on the Contribution of Economic Anthropology. Social Anthropology 20: Chu, Julie For Use in Heaven or Hell: The Circulation of the U.S. Dollar among Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors. In Cosmologies of Credit: Transnational Mobility and the Politics of Destination in China, pp Durham, NC: Duke University Press. JV8709.F8 C48 Peebles, Gustav The Anthropology of Credit and Debt. Annual Review of Anthropology 39: Oct. 6 (WK5): The Contemporary Debtors Household debtors vs. sovereign debtors. The credit system and social inequality: Must we pay off all our debts? Robbins, Richard Debt and the Monetary Foundations of Inequality. Anthropology News 55 (3 4): Theodossopoulos, Dimitrios Infuriated with the Infuriated? Blaming Tactics and Discontent about the Greek Financial Crisis. Current Anthropology 54: 200 4

5 221. Williams, Brett Seducing Students. In Debt for Sale: A Social History of the Credit Trap, pp Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Online access Kar, Sohini Recovering Debts: Microfinance Loan Officers and the Work of Proxy-Creditors in India. American Ethnologist 40: Kellett, Nicole Microfinance and Economic Inequality in the Peruvian Highlands. Ethnology 50: Oct. 13 (WK6): Money and Capitalism Money as capital: from industrial capitalism to financial capitalism. Capital as the foundation of sociality and globalization. Hart, Keith Capitalism: Making Money with Money. In Memory Bank: Money in an Unequal World, pp London: Profile Books. HB251.H37 Ingham, Geoffrey The Production of Capitalist Credit-Money. In The Nature of Money, pp Cambridge: Polity Press. HG220.A2 I584 Appel, Hannah Occupy Wall Street and the Economic Imagination. Cultural Anthropology 29: Oct. 20 (WK7): Property and Finance A new regime of property rights and credit. The derivative meltdown: who owns/owes what from/to whom? Hirsch, Eric Property and Persons: New Forms and Contests in the Era of Neoliberalism. Annual Review of Anthropology 36: Palomera, Jaime Reciprocity, Commodification, and Poverty in the Era of Financialization. Cultural Anthropology 55: S105 S115. Tett, Gillian The Derivatives Dream; The Cuffs Come Off. In Fool s Gold, pp. 3 22, New York: Free Press. HG6024.U6 T48 5

6 Ho Cheuk-Yuet The Property Question: Meanings and Values. In Neo- Socialist Property Rights: The Predicament of Housing Ownership in China, pp Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Oct. 27 (WK8): Risk and Uncertainty The socio-political distribution of wealth and risk. The shift from rights to risk. Chibnik, Michael Risk, Uncertainty, and Decision Making. In Anthropology, Economics, and Choice, pp Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Online access Maurer, Bill Forget Locke? From Proprietor to Risk-Bearer in New Logics of Finance. Public Culture 11: Boholm, Åsa The Cultural Nature of Risk: Can There be an Anthropology of Uncertainty? Ethnos 68: Riles, Annelise Market Collaboration: Finance, Culture, and Ethnography after Neoliberalism. American Anthropologist 115: Nov. 3 (WK9): Engaging and Manipulating Risk Arbitragers, traders, and speculators: the paradox of market efficiency. Miyazaki, Hirokazu Between Arbitrage and Speculation: An Economy of Belief and Doubt. Economy and Society 36 (3): Zaloom, Caitlin The Work of Risk; The Discipline of the Speculator. In Out of the Pits: Traders and Technology from Chicago to London, pp , Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. HG4621.Z35 Hertz, Ellen The Big Players (dahu). In The Trading Crowd: An Ethnography of the Shanghai Stock Market, pp Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. HG5790.S53 H47 LiPuma, Edward, and Benjamin Lee The World of Risk. In Financial Derivatives and the Globalization of Risk, pp Durham, NC: Duke University Press. HG6024.A3 L56 6

7 Nov. 10 (WK10): Price, Calculability, and Predictability The magic and myth of numbers in modern finance. Appadurai, Arjun The Spirit of Calculation. Cambridge Anthropology 30: Zaloom, Caitlin Ambiguous Numbers. In Out of the Pits: Traders and Technology from Chicago to London, pp Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. HG4621.Z35 Guyer, Jane Composites, Fictions, and Risk: Toward an Ethnography of Price. In Market and Society: The Great Transformation Today, edited by Chris Hann and Keith Hart, pp Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. HF5471.M35 Preda, Alex From Afar: Charts and Their Analysts. In Framing Finance: The Boundaries of Markets and Modern Capitalism, pp Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. HG101.P74 Nov. 17 (WK11): Imagining Valuation and Seeking Value The fund management industry: knowledge production and the pursuit of alpha as a science and/or art. The temporality and spatiality of capital. MacKenzie, Donald Models and Markets. In An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial Models Shape Markets, pp Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Online access Ortiz, Horacio The Limits of Financial Imagination: Free Investors, Efficient Markets, and Crisis. American Anthropologist 116: Conley, John, and William O Barr What Drive Institutional Investment Decisions?-Cultural Factors in the Economic World; The Culture of Capital. In Fortune and Folly: The Wealth and Power of Institutional Investing, pp , Homewood, IL: Business One Irwin. Preda, Alex Financial Knowledge and the Science of the Market. In Framing Finance: The Boundaries of Markets and Modern Capitalism, pp Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. HG101.P74 7

8 Nov. 24 (WK12): The Wall Streeters A culture of excellence, accumulation, and deprivation. Ho, Karen Wall Street s Orientation: Exploitation, Empowerment, and the Politics of Hard Work. In Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street, pp Durham: Duke University Press. Online access Ortiz, Horacio Financial Professionals as a Global Elite. In The Anthropology of Elites, pp New York: Palgrave MacMillan. HM1263.A59 Recommended Delaney, Kevin Risk and Reward: Hedge Fund Traders and Poker Players. In Money at Work: On the Job with Priests, Poker Players and Hedge Fund Traders, pp New York: New York University Press. Online access Fisher, Melissa Gendered Discourses of Finance. In Wall Street Women, pp Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Poly U Dec. 1 (WK13): The Financial Crisis: Its Rise and Afterlife Is the crisis self-fulfilling or an untended consequence? Is it cyclical or perpetual? The moral hazard of Quantitative Easing. What do we know and what do we learn. Hart, Keith The Roots of the Global Economic Crisis. Anthropology Today 28 (2): 1 2. Ingham, Geoffrey Postscript: The Financial Crisis and Its Aftermath. In Capitalism, pp Cambridge: Polity Press. HKU I48 Ouroussoff, Alexandra Risk; Threat. In Wall Street at War: The Secret Struggle for the Global Economy, pp , Cambridge: Polity Press. HB3722.O92 Ho, Karen Leveraging Dominance and Crises through the Global. In Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street, pp Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Online access Tett, Gillian Anthropology and the Global Financial Crisis. Kroeber Anthropological Society 102: