Gifts Sex, and Commoditie

 SS 293 Gifts Sex and Commodities This course explores interconnected branches of anthropological theory as they relate to economics, exchange theory, and sex. What does it mean when power is achieved through giving things rather than through acquiring things? How are social structures shaped by people’s relations to and exchanges of things? How are these exchanges related to sex, gender, and kinship? These central anthropological questions will be addressed in relation to contemporary ethnographic work on a range of issues including political economy, surrogate motherhood, adoption, organ transplants, alternative currencies, banking, commodities, etc.