Economic Anthropology

Anthropology has a long and complicated history in Africa, and its study of economic life is no exception. In the early days of the discipline, in the 1930s and 1940s, anthropologists like Audrey Richards, Meyer Fortes, and E. E. Evans-Pritchard all departed for Africa to conduct fieldwork. In general, early British social anthropology was committed to holistic studies of small-scale societies, and thus what counted as “economic anthropology” was subsumed within broader studies of kinship and sociopolitical organization. Though later criticized by Manchester School anthropologists for their “bounding” of specific peoples, and by Marxist anthropologists for their neglect of “modes of production,” from a contemporary vantage point these early studies made the same point that anthropologists working in the substantivist tradition of Karl Polanyi also would: that the economy is embedded in social relations and practices. The growing influence of Marxist approaches from the 1960s, as well as growing sympathies between social anthropology and the historical study of Africa, introduced an appreciation of historical processes in the formation of local and regional economies. Feminist approaches expanded the frame of inquiry by demonstrating the gendered character of African economic life, and of the crucial role of women and households to markets and production. New analytical tools borrowed from political economy paved the way for studies of colonial economies—for instance, how the emergence of cash crop production shaped labor migration and land ownership, as well as the shift toward cash itself. The contemporary anthropological study of economic life in Africa has been transformed by pressing events in the latter part of the century—structural adjustment and economic liberalization, not to mention scholars’ identification of the “informal economy”—as key terrain for anthropological research. New attentiveness has been given to how Africans imagine and conceive of economic change, as well as the new types of wealth, credit, and debt brought about via access to foreign capital. The era of economic liberalization has transformed cities and African expectations of the future, sometimes in terms of improved living standards and “middle class” lifestyles, but also a growing disparity between rich and poor. Moving away from the narrative of crisis, newer work seeks to explore African attempts to pursue “the good life” amid ongoing economic turbulence. While anthropologists remain attuned to the effects of economic change, what continues to characterize their approach is an understanding of economies embedded in regional contexts, including their values and established practices.