Latin American progress? Ethnographies of economic growth and technology.

Catalog description

Why do some nations get rich very quickly—and then get poor again? And what does it mean to say that a nation is rich or poor? These questions have special importance in Latin America, where people have lived through five hundred years of economic booms and busts. In this class, we ask fundamental questions about Latin American economic life—which turn out to be fundamental questions about economic growth itself. What is GDP? Does economic growth make people happier? Is technology the secret to more growth? Our primary texts are ethnographies – the stories of people who are living through growth – but we also read works of economists and other thinkers. We consider the economic effects of Latin American conquest, enslavement, liberalism, ISI, and export-oriented models. We engage with ecological approaches, feminist critiques, the happiness paradox, and de-growth. We try to think carefully about the possible roads toward a better world economy.