Credit hours
In-class work per week |
Practice per week |
Credits |
Duration |
Total |
4 |
0 |
10 |
15 weeks |
150 hours |
Instructor
Carla Morsello
Cristina Adams
Objective
The discipline addresses the main aspects investigated by Human Ecology and Economic Anthropology in autarchic and semi-autarchic groups, including the effects of market integration and changes in natural resource use and management (hunting, fishing, gathering, subsistence agriculture). It is focused on graduate students investigating indigenous and traditional communities in the field, or modeling social systems.
Content
Social and household organization: definitions, household’s life cycle, gender and age labor organization. Economic and subsistence strategies, natural resource use and management in tropical forests: hunting and gathering, horticulture, subsistence agriculture. Common-pool resources. Reciprocity and cooperation. Integration to market economy: income, time allocation, diversification versus specialization.
Bibliography
Chayanov A. The theory of peasant co-operatives. Ohio State University, 1991.
Ellen R. Environment, subsistence and system: the ecology of small-scale social formations. Cambridge University Press, 1982.
Ellis F. Peasant economics: farm households in agrarian development. Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Ellis F. Rural livelihoods and diversity in developing countries. Oxford University Press, 2000.
Gibson, C. C., McKEAN M. A., OSTROM E. People and Forests. Communities, Institutions and Governance. MIT Press, 2000.
Henrich J et al. Foundations of human sociality. Oxford University Press, 2004.
Henrich J, Henrich N. Why humans cooperate: a cultural evolutionary explanation. Oxford University Press, 2007.
Humphrey C, Hugh-Jones S. (eds.). Barter, exchange and value. Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Kolm S-C, Ythier JM. Handbook of the economics of giving, altruism and reciprocity. Volume 1: Foundations. North Holland, 2006.
Netting R. Households: comparative and historical studies of the domestic group. University of California Press, 1984.
Ostrom, E. Governing the Commons. The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action.
Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Panter-Brick C, Layton RH, Rowley-Conwy P. Hunter-gatherers: an interdisciplinary perspective. Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Sahlins M. Stone age economics. Aldine Publishing, 1974.