Moral Economy

Moral economy is how social groups produce moral authority through ritual exchange. Wherever human beings mistreat each other in the name of religion or justice, moral economy provides a way of specifying the ideological imperatives at work. In this seminar we will begin with how groups produce sanctity through sacrifice, then explore the moral economies at work in a range of conflicts including the Culture War in the U.S. revolution vs. revivalism in Latin America, and witch wars in Africa. Our goal is to develop a typology of moral economies that can be applied to a wide range of situations (SOAN 0103, or SOAN 0105, or RELI 0110, or RELI 0120) 3 hrs. sem.