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Society for Economic Anthropology
NICOLA B. TANNENBAUM (nt01@LEHIGH.EDU)
Tue, 3 Oct 1995 11:26:12 EDT
Could you please post the following call for papers for the Society for
Economic Anthropology meetings?
Thanks.
1996 Spring Meeting of the Society for Economic Anthropology
March 22-24, 1996
Lehigh University
Bethlehem, PA. 18015
USA
The topic for the 1996 Econ Anthro meetings is: At the Interface of Households
and Beyond. A description of the topic follows. Abstracts are due by NOV. 1.
In the abstract provide use with enough information about your project, how it
relates to the topic, and some sense of what you make of it. Abstracts will
not be published but will provide us with enough information to make a
program.
SEA meetings consist of plenary session plus a poster paper session.
Send your abstracts to: David Small or Nicola Tannenbaum, Anthropology, 681
Taylor St., Lehigh Univ., Bethlehem, PA 18015 or NT01@lehigh.edu or
DBS6@lehigh.edu.
If you have questions, please get in touch electronically with either e-mail
address.
Thanks.
David B. Small
Nicola Tannenbaum
Description: At the Interface of Households and Beyond
Households form the basic production unit in many types of
societies. However, we do not have a good understanding of
the ways in which households and their products are joined
to constitute political economies. Unlike the third
conference of the SEA, which focused on households
themselves, the focus here is on the interface, the
connections between households, households and communities,
and household and extra-community organizations, connections
which form the arena for political economic processes.
To that end, the topic "At the Interface of Households and
Beyond" provides the widest possible perspective on the
nature of these connections. Within this theme, papers can
reexamine the role of households (and other basic production
units) and their relationships in constituting large
political economic units. This then allows the analyses of
interdependent mosaics of connected household units and
examination of household connections to supra community
organizations and institutions. From analysis of particular
cases it may be possible to construct the role of the
interface, i.e. the connections, in the evolution of larger
political economic units.
Although all submissions are encouraged, the theme of this
conference generates two broad areas of investigation:
1. The household interface as a dynamic structure for the
evolution of complex societies. Using the household
interface as a focus for analysis offer a different window
into developing political economies. Already several
analysts have turned away from the canonical paradigms of
nested hierarchies as armatures for economic and political
control into more complex social organizations (Schwartz and
Falconer 1984, Crumley 1987, Sanders 1989). By redirecting
attention to household connections, this type of analysis
would also present a much-needed review of networks of
production and exchange in complex societies and their
evolution.
2. A household centered view of complex social and
political institutions. A stand at the interface makes
possible the analysis of the positions of households vis-a-
vis larger units and makes visible the products of their
mutual negotiations (Scott 1985, Duara 1988). Rather than
the single sided analysis of household production or state
political economic regulation, this requires the exploration
of various positions and their resources, and their ability
to negotiate, providing the perspective necessary to analyze
these complex interactions and their consequences and
engendering the theory necessary for understanding these
processes.
Crumley, C.
1987 "A Dialectical Critique of Hierarchy," in Power
Relations and State Formation, edited by T.
Patterson and C. Gailey, pp. 187-209. Washington:
American Anthropological Association.
Duara, Prasenjit
1988 Culture, Power, and the State. Stanford: Stanford
University Press.
Sanders, W.
1989 "Household, Lineage, and State at Eighth-Century
Copan, Honduras," in The House of the Bacabs,
edited by D. Webster, pp. 89-105. Washington:
Dumbarton Oaks.
Schwartz, G. and S. Falconer (eds.)
1994 Archaeological Views from the Countryside:
Village Communities in Early Complex Societies,
edited by G. Schwartz and S. Falconer. Washington:
Smithsonian Institution Press.
Scott, James C.
1985 Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant
Resistance. Yale: Yale University Press.
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