Arturo Escobar (anthropologist)

Arturo Escobar
Born	(1951-11-10) November 10, 1951 Manizales, Colombia

Education
Education	University of Valle (BS) Cornell University (MA) University of California, Berkeley (PhD)
Philosophical work
Era	20th-century philosophy 21st-century philosophy
School	Postdevelopment theory Postcolonialism Poststructuralism
Notable ideas	Pluriverse

Economic, applied, and development anthropology
Part of a series on
Basic concepts Barter Commodification Cultural capital Debt Embeddedness Finance Gift economy Inalienable possessions Limited good Reciprocity Redistribution Value Wealth Singularization (commodity pathway) Social capital Spheres of exchange
Provisioning systems Hunting-gathering Moral economy Nomadic pastoralism Pastoralism Peasant economics Shifting cultivation
Case studies Prestations Kula ring Moka exchange Potlatch Gifting Gifting remittances Organ gifting Shell money Provisioning Aché people (hunter-gatherers) Batek people Colonialism and development The Anti-Politics Machine Europe and the People Without History Political economy Jim Crow economy
Related articles Anthropology of development Critique of political economy Culture of poverty Formalist–substantivist debate The Great Transformation Heritage commodification Nutritional anthropology Original affluent society Peasant economics Political economy State formation
Major theorists Paul Bohannan Alexander Chayanov Stanley Diamond Raymond Firth Maurice Godelier David Graeber Jane I. Guyer Keith Hart Marvin Harris Bronisław Malinowski Marcel Mauss Sidney Mintz Karl Polanyi Marshall Sahlins Heinrich Schurtz Harold K. Schneider Eric Wolf
Social and cultural anthropology

Anthropology
Part of a series on

Outline History
Types Archaeological Biological Cultural Linguistic Social
Archaeological Aerial Aviation Battlefield Biblical Bioarchaeological Environmental Ethnoarchaeological Experimental Feminist Forensic Maritime Paleoethnobotanical Zooarchaeological
Biological Anthrozoological Biocultural Evolutionary Forensic Molecular Neurological Nutritional Paleoanthropological Primatological
Social Cultural Applied Art Cognitive Cyborg Development Digital Ecological Environmental Economic Political economy Feminist Food Historical Institutional Kinship Legal Media Medical Museums Musical Political Psychological Public Religion Symbolic Transpersonal Urban Visual
Linguistic Anthropological Descriptive Ethnological Ethnopoetical Historical Ideology Semiotic Sociological
Research framework Anthropometry Ethnography cyber Ethnology Cross-cultural comparison Participant observation Holism Reflexivity Thick description Cultural relativism Ethnocentrism Emic and etic
Key concepts Culture Development Ethnicity Evolution sociocultural Gender Kinship and descent Meme Prehistory Race Society Value Colonialism / Postcolonialism
Key theories Actor–network theory Alliance theory Boasian anthropology Cross-cultural studies Cultural materialism Culture theory Diffusionism Feminism Functionalism Historical particularism Interpretive Performance studies Political economy Practice theory Structuralism Post-structuralism Systems theory
Lists Anthropologists by nationality Anthropology by year Bibliography Journals List of indigenous peoples Organizations

Arturo Escobar (born November 20, 1951) is a Colombian-American anthropologist and professor emeritus of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA. His academic research interests include political ecology, anthropology of development, social movements, anti-globalization movements, political ontology, and postdevelopment theory.

Escobar is a major figure in the post-development academic discourse and has been described as a "post-development thinker to be reckoned with". He has authored influential books criticizing development practices championed by western industrialized societies and exploring possibilities for alternative visions of development, including Encountering Development (1995) and Designs for the Pluriverse (2018).