Newsletter - Fall 2002

National Science Foundation Funding for Economic Anthropology

Stuart Plattner, the program director for cultural anthropology at the National Science Foundation (NSF) has written a report about NSF funding in fiscal year 2002. He notes that the program received 78 “senior” proposals (from principal investigators with Ph.D.s) and made 21 awards. The largest single award was in economic anthropology. Jean Ensminger (California Institute of Technology) and colleagues were awarded $463,425 to study experimental economics and social norms in sixteen small-scale societies. This award was co-funded with Economics and the Decision, Risk, and Management Science Program. Only two other awards were given to projects that from their titles seem directly related to economic anthropology — (1) Suriname and French Guiana: Social Welfare and Gold Mining (Ricardo Godoy and Marieke Heemskerk, Brandeis University); and (2) Trade Routes of Hkakabor Razi, N. Myanamar (Christiaan Klieger, California Academy of Sciences). Several other awards, including two given to active members of the SEA (Cynthia Werner -- Texas A&M, Paul Durrenberger – Pennsylvania State), were given for proposals that appear to have some economic anthropology content.

The program received 139 dissertation research proposal and made 29 awards. Economic anthropology fared well in this competition. Eight awards were given to proposals that seem from their titles to be directly related to economic anthropology and many others seem to have economic anthropology content.