Dean of the College and Anthropology Program Present
"Saving and Salvation: How Farmers Do Not Hold on to Money in Northeastern Brazil"
Thursday, December 1, 2016
Reem-Kayden Center Laszlo Z. Bito '60 Auditorium
6:00 pm EST/GMT-5
6:00 pm EST/GMT-5
Gregory Duff Morton
Postdoctoral Fellow, Watson Institute,
Brown University
Postdoctoral Fellow, Watson Institute,
Brown University
The poorest 10% of Brazil's population doubled their incomes between 2001 and 2011. During this time of raging economic growth, a group of small farmers declared that they themselves would not save any money at all. Saving money, they argued, was a vice.
While the farmers were refusing to save, Brazil's government was busy borrowing money to construct Bosla Família, the world's largest national cash welfare program. These seemingly-unrelated events intersected. Together, they changed the way that rural Brazilians handle money, a change that became real with every bill that passed into and out of a farmer's hands.
What does it mean to turn away from saving? This paper considers the saving question as a point of encounter between anthropological exchange theory (Weiner 1992, Levi-Strauss 1949) and classical political economy (Marx 1844)-- and as a sign of the urgent dilemmas of growth today (Li 2014, Tsing 2005, Gens Collective 2015). Not saving money is an everyday habit that turns into a risky, noisy form of critique. It can register one's disagreement with the channels through which money flows, and it can mark out the path that a new channel might follow.
For more information, call 845-758-7219, or e-mail [email protected].
Time: 6:00 pm EST/GMT-5
Location: Reem-Kayden Center Laszlo Z. Bito '60 Auditorium