💰 DAY 3 — Economy, Work, Race, and the Body

Economic anthropology

Studies how humans produce, exchange, and consume goods within cultural systems.

Modes of production

Subsistence, Tributary, Capitalist.

Polanyi’s modes of exchange

Reciprocity, Redistribution, Market exchange.

Generalized reciprocity

No immediate return expected.

Balanced reciprocity

Expect return of equal value soon.

Negative reciprocity

Aim for personal gain or exploitation.

Redistribution

Central authority collects and reallocates goods (taxes, tribute).

Market exchange

Value set by supply and demand.

Money as cultural symbol

Represents moral and relational meanings beyond material worth.

Consumption as culture

Choices express identity, ethics, and group belonging.

Protestant ethic

Religious roots of capitalist work discipline (Weber).

Iron cage

Obligation to constant productivity even without religious motive.

Commodification

Turning relationships or identities into marketable products.

Self-branding

Packaging oneself as a product (résumé, social media).

Class vs Status

Class = economic position; Status = social prestige.

Moral economy

Economic practices guided by fairness and care norms.

Scientific racism

Pseudo-science ranking humans by race.

Early racial taxonomists

Linnaeus and Blumenbach.

Race as social construct

No biological basis; socially created categories with real effects.

Ethnicity

Shared cultural heritage and ancestry; self-ascribed identity.

Nationality

Legal membership in a political state.

Diaspora

Dispersed population maintaining cultural ties to homeland.

Levels of racism

Individual, Institutional, Structural.

Embodiment

Social inequality affecting biological outcomes.

Epigenetics

Social/environmental factors altering gene expression across generations.

Weathering

Physiological stress from chronic discrimination and inequality.

Alan Goodman quote

“Race is real, but it’s not genetic.” (2020)

Clarence Gravlee work

“How Race Becomes Biology” (2009): inequality becomes biology.

UMich podcast finding

Racism increases disease risk through chronic stress.

Cultural heritage

Traditions and knowledge preserving identity across generations.