Sabanci Summer School 2012
ANTH 350: “Anthropology of Development, Social Change and Social Justice”
Instructor: K. Murat Güney --- Department of Anthropology, Columbia University
E-mail: mkg2116@columbia.edu
Schedule: Wednesday 11:40-14:30 (Room: Fass G056)
Thursday 11:40-14:30 (Room: Fass 1096)
Course Description:
The global expansion of the sphere of neoliberal market economy put the debates on
development and social justice at the center of studies in social sciences. With the rise of
neoliberal capitalism, developing countries such as China, India, Brazil and Turkey have
experienced a remarkable economic growth in the last 20 years. However, this fast economic
growth comes along with its downsides such as the dramatic rise in income inequality,
violation of human rights, suppression of unionized workers, and worsening conditions at
work.
In this social and political context this course aims to introduce major theoretical and critical
approaches to global capitalism, development and social justice. Moreover, this course seeks
to present various ethnographic examples concerning the global and local experiences of the
fast economic growth and the consequent social change. We will start with analyzing the
fundamental critiques of liberal capitalism introduced by Marx, Lenin, Weber and Polanyi.
Then we will focus on the contemporary neo-Marxist (Harvey) and post-structuralist
(Foucault) approaches to neoliberalism and discuss what is “new” about “neoliberalism”. In
this theory sections we will investigate whether neoliberalism is merely a global economic
and governmental regime organized in the state level or also an expansion and diffusion of
the market logic in the social and individual relations in the local. Moreover, we will analyze
the tensions between the global markets and their effects in the local when we discuss
DeSoto’s and Mitchell’s works on the construction of the markets.
“Can the ill effects of fast economic growth be cured within the logic of the market
economy?” To answer that question we will analyze the ethnographically informed works of
the contemporary theorists of globalization such as Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen.
Furthermore, we will discuss the experience of fast economic development and the working
of neoliberalism on the ground. As a case study on the fast economic growth and its effects
on the everyday life we will focus more closely on the neoliberal transformation experienced
in Turkey. While discussing works of Isik, Pinarcioglu, Keyder, Bugra and Tugal we will
question how neoliberalism changed our perception concerning the government, market and
our selves. Finally, we will critically analyze the current crisis of capitalism and question
whether crises are an inevitable outcome of the capitalist market economy. All in all this
course aims to provide a fundamental theoretic and ethnographic discussion on the issues of
development and social change for the students who are living in an age of economic crises,
subjugated by the hegemony of the finance capital and experiencing everyday the rising
threat of unemployment.
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Course Requirements:
Attendance and Participation (15%): Students are expected to read all the assignments and
to attend all classes.
Presentation (35%): Each student is expected to prepare a presentation on one reading that
s/he chooses in the first week of the class. Presenters have to critically analyze the main
points of the assignments and introduce novel questions on the topic. Presentations cannot be
longer than 15 minutes and have to be returned in paper form in the following week.
Final Paper (50%): Final papers can be either written on one major topic discussed in class
or configured as a research paper related to the issues introduced during the course. If the
student wants to write a research paper s/he has to talk to the instructor a week in advance to
get his approval.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Week 1 – The Historical and Fundamental Critiques of Liberal Capitalism
Marx, Karl, 1977 [1867] “The Commodity”, in Capital. Volume 1, trans. B. Fowkes, New
York: Vintage, Pp. 127-77.
Weber, Max 2001 [1905] The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism. Routledge. Pp.136 & 102-125
Polanyi, Karl 2001 [1944] The Great Transformation, The Political and Economic Origins of
Our Time. Beacon Press, Forward, Ch 4-5-6 (Pp.45-71)
Recommended:
Lenin, V. I. 1965 [1916] Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. University of
Michigan Press
Week 2: The Neo-Marxist Approach to Neoliberalism: “Neoliberalism as the
Restoration of the Bourgeois Class Power”
Harvey, David. 2005 A Brief History of Neoliberalism. New York: Oxford University Press,
Pp. 1-81
Comaroff, Jean & John. 2000 “Millennial Capitalism: First Thoughts on a Second Coming”
in Public Culture 12(2): Pp. 291–343
Week 3: The Post-Structuralist Approach to Neoliberalism: “Neoliberalism as a Way of
Life”
Foucault, Michel. 2008 The Birth of Biopolitics, Lectures at College de France 1978-1979,
NY. Palgrave Macmillan. Pp 27-75 & 101-129 & 215-291
Brown, Wendy. 2005 “Neoliberalism and the End of Liberal Democracy” in Edgework:
Critical Essays on Knowledge and Politics. Princeton University Press. Pp.37-60
Calhoun, Craig. 2006 “The Privatization of Risk” in Public Culture 18:2 Pp.257-263
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Recommended:
Ferguson, James and Akhil Gupta. 2002 “Spatializing States: Toward an Ethnography of
Neoliberal Governmentality” in American Ethnologist 29(4):981 -10
Week 4: The Anthropology of the Markets
De Soto, Hernando. 2000 The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and
Fails Everywhere Else. New York: Basic Books. Pp: 1-13; 36-68.
Mitchell, Timothy. 2007 “The Properties of Markets”, in MacKenzie, Donald et.al. (eds.) Do
Economists Make Markets? On the Performativity of Economics. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Week 5: The Liberal Democratic Approach to the Development: Can the Ill Effects of
the Fast Economic Growth Be Cured Within the Logic of the Market Economy?
Sen, Amartya. 1999 Development as Freedom. New York: Anchor books. Pp.1-54
Stiglitz, Joseph. 2003 Globalization and its Discontents. W. W. Norton & Company Press.
Pp. 1-53
Sen, Amartya and Joseph Stiglitz. 2010 Mismeasuring Our Lives: Why GDP Doesn’t Add
Up. Pp.1-23 & 61-97
Week 6: The Anthropology of Social Change: The Rise of Neoliberalism in Turkey
Bugra, Ayse and Caglar Keyder. 2003. New Poverty and the Changing Welfare Regime of
Turkey. Ankara: UNDP Office in Turkey.
Isik, Oguz and Melih Pinarcioglu. 2008 “Not Only Helpless but also Hopeless: Changing
Dynamics of Urban Poverty in Turkey, the Case of Sultanbeyli, Istanbul” European Planning
Studies Vol. 16, No. 10, November 2008. Pp. 1353-1370
Tugal, Cihan. 2009 Passive Revolution: Absorbing the Islamic Challenge to Capitalism.
Stanford University Press, Introduction (Pp.1-19), Ch.4 (Pp.102-147) & Ch.6 (Pp.192-235)
Week 7: The Crisis of Capitalism or Capitalism is the Crisis
Calhoun, Craig. 2011 “From the Current Crisis to Possible Futures”, in Business as Usual:
The Roots of the Global Financial Meltdown. C. Calhoun and G. Derluguian (eds.) New
York: NYU Press. Pp: 9-53
Chirot, Daniel. 2011 “A Turning Point or Business as Usual”, in Business as Usual: The
Roots of the Global Financial Meltdown. C. Calhoun and G. Derluguian (eds.) New York:
NYU Press. Pp: 113-137
Adams, Vincanne; Hattum Taslim; English Diana 2009 “Chronic Disaster Syndrome:
Displacement, Disaster Capitalism, and the Eviction of the Poor from New Orleans”. In
American Ethnologist, 36(4). Pp-615-636
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