Poverty, Vulnerability and the Global Economy (821L6)

30 credits, Level 7 (Masters)

Spring teaching

On this module, you’ll explore how poverty, vulnerability and marginality are created and reproduced in the global economy.

Using anthropology, you’ll investigate the factors that contribute to the ‘adverse incorporation’ of people in global economic processes.

Focusing on case studies, you’ll explore social, economic, and political processes that contribute to poverty. You’ll study the link between poverty and capitalism through several themes:

• gender and the household
• structural systems such as class and race, and their influence on poverty as an embodied experience
• the dynamics of migration, urban life and working for global markets
• how these dynamics influence conditions of precariousness.

Through case studies, you’ll explore:

• the political economy of debt
• how indebtedness creates dependencies and vulnerabilities globally
• ‘the poor’ not only as victims, but also as agents with the ability to speak, act, resist and create
• different poverty-alleviation interventions
• the transformative potential of contemporary social protection policies.

Contact hours and workload

This module is approximately 300 hours of work. This breaks down into about 33 hours of contact time and about 267 hours of independent study. The University may make minor variations to the contact hours for operational reasons, including timetabling requirements.

We regularly review our modules to incorporate student feedback, staff expertise, as well as the latest research and teaching methodology. We’re planning to run these modules in the academic year 2025/26. However, there may be changes to these modules in response to feedback, staff availability, student demand or updates to our curriculum.

We’ll make sure to let you know of any material changes to modules at the earliest opportunity.