Project
Moral Economies in African Muslim Societies
The project proposes to study and bring attention to contemporary moral economies in African Muslim societies that are overlooked.
Project
The “social work” of work: Gendered dependencies of rural livelihoods in southern Africa
While policy-makers and international development practitioners in southern Africa put a great weight on supporting job creation given several decades of jobless growth in the region, there is less attention on how women and men are both differentially situated in labour relations and how they differentially make claims on resources that come from work activities through, for example, idioms of kinship, family, patronage, or friendship.
Publication
Redistribution and indebtedness: a tale of two settings
James, Deborah. 2020. Redistribution and indebtedness: a tale of two settings. In C. Hann & D. Kalb (Eds.), Financialization: Relational...
Publication
“Deeper into a Hole?” Borrowing and Lending in South Africa
Deborah James. 2014. “Deeper into a Hole?” Borrowing and Lending in South Africa. Current Anthropology, 55 (Supplement 9), S17-S29
Publication
Money From Nothing: Indebtedness and Aspiration in South Africa
Deborah James. 2014. Money From Nothing: Indebtedness and Aspiration in South Africa. Stanford University Press (Palo Alto) and Wits Press (...
Publication
Sorting out income’: transnational householding and austerity Britain
James, Deborah and Samuel Kirwan. 2019. ‘Sorting out income’: transnational householding and austerity Britain. Social Anthropology, 1469–86...
Project
Multi-class families, regional disparities and the emergence of middle classes in Africa
Drawing on my own fieldwork in Ghana as well as secondary sources on West Africa, but also other African countries, this project will explore two challenges in particular.
