Towards a human economy: reflections on a new project

The University of Pretoria's Human Economy project began at the end of 2010. To date it has involved eighteen post-doctoral fellows, drawn from around the world, and eight doctoral candidates, all from Africa. This paper reviews the project's progress, drawing attention to how its participants have come to construe the notion of a 'human economy' and the main social theorists on whom they have drawn in doing so. The development of our thinking regarding a human economy is explained by reference to the two edited volumes, comprising contributions from all the post-doctoral fellows, which will be published in the near future. Challenges for future research are considered in the final part of the paper.