6: Economics (Lyon)

As a discipline, economics studies the decisions made by people and businesses and how these decisions interact in the marketplace. Economists’ models generally rest on several assumptions: that people know what they want, that their economic choices express these wants, and that their wants are defined by their culture. Economics is a normative theory because it specifies how people should act if they want to make efficient economic decisions. In contrast, anthropology is a largely descriptive social science; we analyze what people actually do and why they do it. Economic anthropologists do not necessarily assume that people know what they want (or why they want it) or that they are free to act on their own individual desires.

Thumbnail: A waste picker is a person who salvages reusable or recyclable materials thrown away by others to sell or for personal consumption.[1] There are millions of waste pickers worldwide, predominantly in developing countries, but increasingly in post-industrial countries as well Scavenging in Jakarta, Indonesia (CC BY 2.0; Jonathan McIntosh).​​​​

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