Reading Marx with David Harvey

If you've ever wanted to do a close, guided reading of Marx' work, you probably couldn't ask for a better teacher than Distinguished Professor of Anthropology & Geography David Harvey. Not only has Harvey has been teaching Karl Marx's Capital for more than four decades, he's willing to meet you on your schedule and for free! In other words, he's developed an online course that will take you through Volumes I and II with video lectures. 

There's also an option to download the lectures as audio podcasts -- perfect for long commutes on your way to sell your labour. The online course, Reading Marx with David Harvey, is available through Harvey's website. Harvey's site also offers a lecture series (6 videos) on "Marx and Capital: The Concept, The Book, The History."

Quick links:

• Reading Marx with David Harvey: "A close reading of the text of Karl Marx's Capital in free video lectures by David Harvey."
• Marx and Capital: The Concept, The Book, The History
• Finding a copy of Marx' Capital

Climate Change Resource for the Classroom

Leonardo Di Caprio has given open access to his environmental documentary on climate change. Entitled Before the Flood, Di Caprio wants to engender a sense of urgency regarding climate change and to show us the role we can play.

Important to note is that there may be a time limit in which this documentary is available for free (perhaps this is just its availability on cable); however, according to EcoWatch.com: from Oct. 30 through Nov. 6, you can also watch it on just about any website or device where you regularly stream online videos. The exhaustive list includes: Natgeotv.com, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, iTunes, Hulu, Sony PlayStation, GooglePlay, VOD/Video On Demand (through MVPD set-top boxes), MVPD Sites and Apps, Nat Geo TV Apps (iPhone, iPad and Apple TV, Roku, Android phones, Xbox One and 360, Samsung Connected TVs) and more.
You can watch it right here.

Check it out with your classes for those in need of something timely and important.

Ghettos

Ghettos. We commonly associate the term today with places like "effective social or ethnic ghettos, from the favelas of Brazil to the mostly black urban neighbourhoods of the United States and the predominantly north African banlieues of Paris."

But this term, as we learn in "Inventing the Ghetto" (2016, 1843 Magazine - The Economist), has its own specific history that dates back 500 years to the establishment of the Jewish ghetto in Venice on March 29th 1516.

I like this piece for the ways in which it connects the history of this ghetto in Venice, with the treatment of its Jewish inhabitants, and the growth of the city, but also with contemporary issues of social inequality and issues of space and place. Instructors might like this piece as background for a lecture on social inequality, space and place, or gentrification. I can also see it being an interesting think piece for upper year students to think about how social contemporary issues have connections to broader historical, political, and economic processes and precedents.

Why aren't millennials buying diamonds?

link to original tweet @TheEconomist

Earlier this week, The Economist magazine asked the Twittersphere a question: Why aren't millennials buying diamonds?

Unsurprisingly, this question generated a lot of (angry) feedback.

If you actually follow the links to the different articles that The Economist has published, it becomes clear that the authors have a few answers to why "the diamond industry is being upended," as a later tweet explained. In one link, the threat to the diamond industry comes from the production of new synthetic and conflict-free diamonds. According to a similar story,

In 2003 the diamond industry responded to concerns that sales of illicit stones were being used to finance warfare in Africa by launching the Kimberley Process certification scheme. This was designed to make diamonds traceable, but focuses only on the ones that pay for rebel armies. Man-made diamonds spare millennials and others the headache of worrying that they are supporting human-rights abuses under repressive regimes such as Zimbabwe’s. Adding Hollywood glamour to the moral appeal is Leonardo DiCaprio, an investor in a synthetic-diamonds startup.

Yes, ethical consumption practices do play an important role in why millennials aren't buying diamonds. But, to think that ethical consumerism (and the new choice to purchase ethical synthetic stones) is the only reason, certainly does not provide a holistic answer. It also completely bypasses the question of 'value' that anthropologist Andrew Walsh has written about in relation to 'authentic' versus 'synthetic' sapphires...

What is interesting is that neither of The Economist's stories pick up on the threads that irate millennial tweeters rightly drew into the conversation. Such threads are picked up by an article for The Daily Beast (Lacking Sparkle: Why Have Millennials Fallen Out of Love With Diamonds?): Russell Shor, senior industry analyst at the Gemological Institute of America, said that the decline of diamond sales in the US

"is because of the different priorities of twentysomethings. “People in the millennial generation need to save more. If you’re a young person trying to buy a house in this market where housing prices have risen and wages still haven’t caught up, obviously you aren’t thinking about buying really expensive diamonds.”"

In the classroom, posing The Economist's question: "why aren't millennials buying diamonds?" might be a useful discussion question to open broader conversation about a number of important topics, such as: ethical consumerism, the idea of authenticity and value, or how the relative poverty of millennials compared to their parents is actually part of the same global economic system that has lead to the production of conflict diamonds.

Quick links and further reading:

• The Economist: Shine On (2016); In the Rough (2016)
• The Economist's provocative tweet and responses (via Twitter)
• Lacking Sparkle: Why Have Millennials Fallen Out of Love With Diamonds? (2016, The Daily Beast)
• Anthropologist Andrew Walsh's website and Academia.edu pages. Recommended reading: 
• 2010  The Commoditization of Fetishes: Telling the Difference between Natural and Synthetic Sapphires.  American Ethnologist, 37(1): 97-113.
• 2012  Made in Madagascar: Sapphires, Ecotourism, and the Global Bazaar. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Market exchange, gift economies, and other social contructs

"Even though some anthropologists have long known the barter system was just a thought experiment, the idea is incredibly widespread. And this isn’t just an academic curiosity—the idea of barter may have altered history." ("The Myth of the Barter Economy," The Atlantic, 26 February 2016).

This article quotes and features a number of anthropologists, including David Graeber, who address how the barter economy discussed by Adam Smith has never actually existed. When we refer to the ethnographic record on 'gift economies' in different cultures we can see how the simplified barter economy theorized by Smith is not only a fiction, but one that has deeply shaped our contemporary 'exchange-based mentality'.

Anthropologists on Wall Street

Back in 2011, American Gov. Rick Scott sparked the discussion about the market value of STEM over liberal-arts education. The Economist featured this piece in their blog's Education Policy section about what anthropologists can bring to the table, including in the field of finance: "More anthropologists on Wall Street please" (24 October 2011)

The Gift & Mardi Gras

from Sapiens (http://www.sapiens.org/  |  @SAPIENS_org)
“Throw Me Something, Mister!” Hal Phillips (9 February 2016)
"Mardi Gras is much more than a debaucherous party. The exchange of gifts in parades and parties binds New Orleans’ diverse communities together."