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Module details for 2021/22.

30 credits

FHEQ Level 7 (Masters)

Module Outline

This module explores how poverty, vulnerability and marginality are created and reproduced in the global economy. Taking an anthropological perspective, we explore social, economic and political factors and relations that contribute to the ‘adverse incorporation’ (Phillips 2011) of people within global economic processes. Focusing on diverse local case studies, a central premise of the module is that rather than generalise about ‘poverty’, ‘the poor,’ and ‘development’, we need to understand the specific social, economic, and political processes that contribute to the production of poverty in particular contexts. We focus on the relationship between poverty and capitalism via several themes: how gender and the household shape relations of poverty; how structural systems such as class and race are central to how poverty is constituted and becomes lived as embodied experience; and how the dynamics of migration, urban life, and working for global markets contribute to or mitigate conditions of precariousness.

We explore the political economy of debt, and how relations of indebtedness create dependencies and vulnerabilities across the globe. The module considers ‘the poor’ not merely as victims but also as agents with an ability to speak, act, resist, and create. Finally, we critically assess some different poverty-alleviation interventions, and consider the transformative potential of contemporary social protection policies. Each of the above issues will be explored with reference to in-depth case studies from around the world.

Module learning outcomes

Demonstrate systematic and critical understanding of key anthropological approaches to poverty, vulnerability and inequality in the global economy

Demonstrate comprehensive knowledge of a range of power relations and institutional contexts that (re)produce poverty and vulnerability in the global economy

Demonstrate critical knowledge of the way in which contemporary processes of migration, industrialisation and neoliberalisation affect poverty and inequality across the globe

Critically evaluate and assess different approaches to poverty alleviation, including market, state, and civil society interventions

Apply empirical knowledge and theoretical understanding of causes and implications of poverty and vulnerability to a particular case study

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Timing

Submission deadlines may vary for different types of assignment/groups of students.

Weighting

Coursework components (if listed) total 100% of the overall coursework weighting value.

How to read the week pattern

The numbers indicate the weeks of the term and how many events take place each week.

Miss Megan Sweeney

Assess convenor
/profiles/403351

Mx Emilia Moscardini-Powers

Assess convenor
/profiles/214700

Dr Rebecca Prentice

Convenor, Assess convenor
/profiles/98251

Miss Camila Supervielle

Assess convenor
/profiles/535431