Current Anthropological Research: The Class on Class: Towards an Anthropology of Capitalism

This course comprehensively introduces a specific area of contemporary anthropological investigation. Current research trends and recent theoretical developments are explored through critical discussions, emphasising anthropology’s evolving engagement with the selected field. The course offers a unique opportunity to be acquainted with diverse aspects—methodological, epistemological, and theoretical—of the research process. These aspects lie at the very basis of anthropological analysis and practice and of ethnographic production.

Course Theme

This class briefly introduces the anthropology of capitalism by looking at its core relations of inequality and the classical forms of struggle against it. It will do so theoretically, globally, and historically, but also ‘intimately’ via ethnography; in other words, a combination of ‘close up’ and ‘bird` eye view’ that is a hallmark of social anthropology as an ‘interdisciplinary discipline’. The course will offer a short overview of the competing histories of capitalism and the global system, focusing on the intersectional inequalities of class (class combined with race, gender, coloniality, etc.) that underpin it and looking at historical forms of resistance. We will discuss the diverse notions of class that have historically been around, including how global systemic inequalities express themselves in nationalism and post-colonialism. The course will also cover topics such as ‘development’, labour relations, digital technology and artificial intelligence.

The course is designed for students who want to acquire a thorough historical and theoretical overview of capitalism, inequality, and social struggle and become familiar with social anthropological approaches to them.

A student who has completed the course should have the following learning outcomes: knowledge, skills, and general competence.

The student will be able to:

Knowledge

• Provide an overview of the topic addressed in the course, with particular reference to its history and associated theoretical and methodological debates in social anthropology.

Skills

• Explain the current state-of-art of research in the field of study addressed in the course.
• Explain the various methodological and theoretical considerations that must be taken to further develop the field of study.

General competence

• Apply key concepts and perspectives from the course and its field of study independently in the understanding and analysis of local and global processes
• Apply an understanding of the correlation and difference between empirical data, theory, and analysis in text production.