121-065 Working with Value

Formerly available as 136-015 or 136-292/392. Students who have completed 136-015 or 136-292/392 are not eligible to enrol in this subject.

A 12.5-point first-year subject in anthropology, economics, economic history or development studies.

This subject examines the diverse ways people have gone about 'making a living', and the ways anthropologists have sought to explain them. The focus is on the social relations involved in production and reproduction of material life, and on the importance of culture and environment in the construction and transformation of those relationships. Ethnographic examples from systems of different complexity are used to explore the diverse ways in which production, consumption and exchange may be organised and understood, and the ways these domains are articulated. Students should not only become familiar with local economies, but with the emergence of a global economy and the ways it is transforming local and regional logics.