Economic Anthropology

The department of anthropology at the University of Iowa has for many years been an important center for economic anthropology. Faculty members in cultural anthropology and archaeology study decision-making, consumption, development, globalization, trade, work organization, economic stratification, craft production, and political economy in diverse geographic areas in the present and past. Graduate students in recent years have conducted doctoral research on topics such as the production and marketing of Mexican chocolate, organic farming in Sweden, campesino (peasant) unions in Bolivia, and family farmers’ attempts to compete with industrial hog lots in Iowa. University of Iowa faculty have served as officers and edited the newsletter of the Society for Economic Anthropology; the department has also hosted the annual meeting of this organization.

Faculty with Current or Recent Research Projects in Economic Anthropology

Thomas Charlton
Michael Chibnik
Rudi Colloredo-Mansfeld


Current and Recent Graduate Students Conducting Research in Economic Anthropology

Jeanne Frerichs – “The Organic Food Movement, the State, and Industry in Sweden”, doctoral research supported by American Scandinavian Foundation, Fulbright Award (declined)

Gudrun Haraldsdottir-“Cooperation and Conflicting Interests: An Ethnography of Fishing and Fish Trading on the Shores of Lake Malawi”, Ph.D. 2002

Douglas Hertzler - “Agrarian Cultures of Solidarity: Campesino Unions and the Struggle for Land and Community in Santa Cruz, Bolivia,”, Ph.D. 2002, research supported by Wenner Grenn Foundation

Tomomi Naka – “Religious Ideology and Economic Practices among Mennonites in Lancaster, Pennsylvania”, currently writing up dissertation

Balmurli Natrajan –“Ailing Artisans, Dubious Development: Potters in Central India” Ph.D. 1999

Bert Roberts – “Textiles for Tourists: Global Markets and Local Production in Todos Santos Guatemala”, M.A. 1999.

Stephen Tulley - “The Social Organization of Cacao Marketing in Southern Mexico” – doctoral research supported by Fulbright Award, Wenner Gren Foundation, National Science Foundation (declined)

Randy Ziegenhorn – “Networking the Farm: The Social Structure of Cooperation and Competition in Iowa Agriculture” Ph.D. 1997, winner of 1998 D.C. Spriesterbach Prize for excellence in doctoral research in the social sciences

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences