Department of social anthropology seminar with Rebecca Empson

The Department of Social Anthropology has the pleasure to invite you to a seminar with Rebecca Empson from University College London. She will present the following paper:


On Owning and Loaning: Tracing the effects of the Mongolian Wolf Economy at its borders


Abstract
This paper argues that through certain forms of economic prediction, people in Mongolia are being invited to see themselves in relation to new forms of subjectivity that create the context for new forms of action. Although this prediction may go some way to create these contexts, we see that people also make choices about how to act, in particular they allocate sources of wealth and money in different kinds of investments that illuminate a suspended kind of trust in the idea of predicted economic growth and actually go some way to bring about its destruction.


Bionote
Rebecca Empson is a social anthropologist at University College London. She teaches on kinship and economics and is currently working on the emerging subjects of the new Mongolian economy, generated through large-scale mining investments. Her book, Harnessing Fortune (OUP), was published in 2011. It will soon be available as a downloadable e-book on the British Academy website.


All interested are welcome!