Amiel Bize

Name and title:

Amiel Bize, Assistant Professor, Anthropology

Academic focus:

Economic anthropology (value, capitalist margins, post-agrarian rural life, risk, gleaning)

Current research project: 

I am working on a manuscript on post-agrarian rural economies in East Africa (“Risk, Rent, and Remainder”), beginning a project on index-based insurance and risk financing as development technologies, and exploring a tangential interest in practices of gleaning and ideas of remainder.

Previous positions: 

• Assistant Professor (Akademische Rätin), University of Bayreuth, 2019-2020
• Postdoctoral Researcher (Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin), University of Bayreuth, 2018-2019
• Research Fellow (Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin), University of Kassel, 2016-2018

Academic background: 

• Ph.D., Anthropology, Columbia University, 2018
• B.A., Comparative literature, Columbia College, 2003 

Last book read:

The “Poseidon’s Children” trilogy by Alastair Reynolds

In your own time/when not working:

I walk, I grow food, I hang out with a small human who is teaching me to play.

Courses you’re most looking forward to teaching:

Capitalist Debris, The Economics and Ethics of Leftovers

What most excites you about Cornell:

Contributing to a department that’s both intellectually exciting and grounded, and joining an institution with so many parts – I’m excited for the chance to learn from people in the College of Agriculture & Life Sciences and the School of Industrial & Labor Relations and to collaborate across disciplines.