Editing David Graeber (section)

{{Short description|American anthropologist and activist (1961–2020)}}
{{Use American English|date=August 2023}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=September 2020}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name              = David Graeber
| image             = David Graeber 2015-03-07 (16741093492) (cropped).jpg
| caption           = Graeber in 2015
| birth_name        = David Rolfe Graeber
| birth_date        = {{Birth date |1961|02|12}}
| death_date        = {{Death date and age|mf=yes|2020|9|02|1961|02|12}}
| birth_place       = [[New York City]], USA
| death_place       = [[Venice]], Italy
| fields            = {{ubl|[[Economic anthropology]]|[[Social anthropology]]}}
| work_institutions = {{ubl|[[Yale University]]|[[Goldsmiths, University of London]]|[[London School of Economics]]}}
| alma_mater        = {{ubl|[[State University of New York at Purchase]] ([[Bachelor of Arts|BA]], 1984)|[[University of Chicago]] ([[Master of Arts|MA]], [[PhD]], 1996)}}
| thesis_title      = The Disastrous Ordeal of 1987: Memory and Violence in Rural Madagascar
| thesis_url        = https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Disastrous_Ordeal_of_1987.html?id=BpulSwAACAAJ
| doctoral_advisor  = [[Marshall Sahlins]]
| known_for         = {{ubl|[[Debt: The First 5000 Years]] (2011)|[[The Utopia of Rules]] (2015)|[[Bullshit Jobs]] (2018)}}
| awards            = {{ubl|[[Bread and Roses Award]] (2012)|[[Society for Cultural Anthropology|Bateson Book Prize]] (2012)}}
| website = {{URL|www.davidgraeber.org}}
| module            = {{Listen| embed=yes |filename = David Graeber - voice - en.mp3 |title = David Graeber introducing himself |type = speech |description = recorded June 2018}}
| signature         = David Graeber signature.svg
| signature_alt     = David Graeber 
| spouse            = {{marriage|Nika Dubrovsky|2019}}
}}
'''David Rolfe Graeber''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|g|r|eɪ|b|ər}}; February 12, 1961 – September 2, 2020) was an American and British [[anthropologist]], [[Left-wing politics|left-wing]] and [[anarchism|anarchist]] social and political activist. His influential work in [[Social anthropology|social]] and [[economic anthropology]], particularly his books "[[Debt: The First 5,000 Years]]" (2011), "[[The Utopia of Rules]]" (2015) and "[[Bullshit Jobs]]" (2018), and his leading role in the [[Occupy movement]], earned him recognition as one of the foremost anthropologists and left-wing thinkers of his time.<ref name="Guardian">{{cite news|author=Cain, Sian|date=September 3, 2020|title=David Graeber, anthropologist and author of Bullshit Jobs, dies aged 59|work=The Guardian|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/sep/03/david-graeber-anthropologist-and-author-of-bullshit-jobs-dies-aged-59|url-status=live|access-date=September 3, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200903155214/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/sep/03/david-graeber-anthropologist-and-author-of-bullshit-jobs-dies-aged-59|archive-date=September 3, 2020}}</ref><ref name=":5" /><ref>{{Cite web|last=Roos|first=Jerome|date=September 4, 2020|title=The anarchist: How David Graeber became the left's most influential thinker|url=https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/economy/2020/09/anarchist-how-david-graeber-became-lefts-most-influential-thinker|access-date=2021-02-11|website=New Statesman|language=en}}</ref>

Born in New York to a [[Working class|working-class]] family, Graeber studied at [[Purchase College]] and the [[University of Chicago]], where he conducted [[Ethnography|ethnographic]] research in [[Madagascar]] under [[Marshall Sahlins]] and obtained his doctorate in 1996. He was an assistant professor at [[Yale University]] from 1998 to 2005, when the university controversially decided not to renew his contract. Unable to secure another position in the United States, Graeber entered an "academic exile" in England, where he was a [[lecturer]] and [[Reader (academic rank)|reader]] at [[Goldsmiths, University of London|Goldsmiths' College]] from 2008 to 2013, and a professor at the [[London School of Economics]] from 2013.

In his early scholarship, Graeber specialized in [[value theory|theories of value]] (''[[Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value]]'', 2002), [[Social hierarchies|social hierarchy]] and political power (''[[Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology]]'', 2004, ''Possibilities'', 2007, ''[[On Kings]]'', 2017), and the ethnography of Madagascar (''[[Lost People]]'', 2007). In the 2010s he turned to [[historical anthropology]], producing his best-known book, ''Debt: The First 5000 Years'' (2011), an exploration of the historical relationship between [[debt]] and social institutions, as well as a series of essays on the origins of [[social inequality]] in prehistory. In parallel, he developed critiques of [[bureaucracy]] and [[managerialism]] in [[contemporary capitalism]], published in ''[[The Utopia of Rules]]'' (2015) and ''[[Bullshit Jobs]]'' (2018). He coined the concept of [[bullshit job]]s in a 2013 essay that explored the proliferation of "paid employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence".<ref>{{Cite web|last=Graeber|first=David|date=2018-05-04|title='I had to guard an empty room': the rise of the pointless job|url=http://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/may/04/i-had-to-guard-an-empty-room-the-rise-of-the-pointless-job|access-date=2021-02-11|website=The Guardian|language=en}}</ref>

Although exposed to radical left politics from a young age, Graeber's direct involvement in activism began with the [[global justice movement]] of the 1990s. He attended protests against the [[3rd Summit of the Americas]] in [[Quebec City]] in 2001 and the [[World Economic Forum]] in New York in 2002, and later wrote an ethnography of the movement, [[Direct Action: An Ethnography|''Direct Action'']] (2009). In 2011, he became well known as one of the leading figures of [[Occupy Wall Street]] and is credited with coining the slogan "[[We are the 99%]]". His later activism included interventions in support of the [[Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria|Rojava revolution]] in Syria, the [[Labour Party leadership of Jeremy Corbyn|British Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn]] and [[Extinction Rebellion]].