Document 1757921

Department of Social Anthropology SA2002 Handbook 2015/16 Updated 20.1.16 Department of Social Anthropology
University of St Andrews AIMS AND OUTCOMES OF UNDERGRADUATE STUDY IN SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY The Sub-­‐Honours modules are primarily designed to lay the foundations for further study at Honours level in Anthropology. While the grades earned at Sub-­‐Honours level are not factored into your overall degree classification, they do appear on your official University transcript, which will be seen by any future employers or institutions to which you apply. The Honours modules are designed to build on the foundations laid by Sub-­‐Honours modules in Anthropology, and give students the opportunity to develop and broaden their understanding of Anthropology. In addition, Honours modules are designed to equip students with a broad range of personal and intellectual skills which will not only enable students to successfully complete their degree but will provide a foundation for further training and prepare them fully for their future careers. Disciplinary outlook Our programme aims at enabling students to learn to think anthropologically, acquiring a distinctive disciplinary outlook. To this end, the programme aims to enable learners to develop the following: • an understanding of social anthropology as the comparative study of human societies and cultures • an appreciation of the importance of empirical fieldwork as the primary method of gathering data and as a basis for the generation of anthropological theory. • a detailed knowledge of specific themes in social anthropology and the intellectual debates concerning them, such as gender, religion, kinship, nationalism, exchange or material culture • a realisation that knowledge is contested; that anthropology by its nature is dynamic, constantly generating new priorities and theories; and that the peoples with whom anthropologists have traditionally worked may have studies of themselves from which we might also learn • an informed awareness of, and sensitivity to, human diversity, an appreciation of its scope and complexity, and recognition of the richness of experience and potential that it provides. • self-­‐reflection regarding both the nature of our knowledge of the social and of the role of the anthropologist or ethnographer in the collection and presentation of data Theoretical and thematic competence The learners’ achievement of an anthropological outlook has to be grounded on an understanding of the development of the theoretical and thematic scope of the discipline. Our programme is designed to enable learners to achieve the following: • an acquaintance with the theory and history of anthropology • an ability to recognise, assess and make use of different theoretical approaches 2 •
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within the discipline, and an awareness of links to cognate bodies of theory, such as philosophy, history, linguistics and feminist theory a detailed knowledge of anthropological work on particular areas of the world presented as regional courses (such as South America and the Caribbean, Europe, Central Asia, the Pacific and Africa). a familiarity with a range of anthropological methods of representing data, including primary and secondary texts, film and other visual media, and oral sources an awareness of ethical issues concerned with the study and representation of others an awareness of the ways in which anthropological knowledge can be applied (and misapplied) in a range of practical situations an awareness of social and historical change, and knowledge of some paradigms and modes (including indigenous ones) for explaining it an ability to recognise and analyse contexts in which relations of power, subordination and resistance affect the forms taken by human communities an appreciation of the interconnections between various aspects of social and cultural life, belief systems, global forces, individual behavior and the physical environment. Subject-­‐specific skills Depending upon the proportion of social anthropology within their degree programme, students will be able to demonstrate the following: • an ability to understand how human beings interact with their social, cultural and physical environments, and an appreciation of their social and cultural diversity • the ability to formulate, investigate and discuss anthropologically informed questions • a competence in using major theoretical perspectives and concepts in anthropology • the ability to engage with cultures, populations and groups different from their own, without forgoing a sense of personal judgment. An awareness of cultural assumptions, including their own, and the ways in which these impact on an interpretation of others • a recognition of the politics of language, indirect forms of communication, forms of power, theoretical statements and claims of authority, and an ability to analyse them • the ability to apply anthropological knowledge to a variety of practical situations, personal and professional • the ability to plan, undertake and present scholarly work that demonstrates an understanding of anthropological aims, methods and theoretical considerations. Generic skills Depending upon the nature and focus of their degree programme, student attainment will include some or all of the following: • an ability to understand their strengths and weaknesses in learning and study skills and to take action to improve their capacity to learn • the capacity to express their own ideas in writing, to summarise the arguments of others, and to distinguish between the two • independence of thought and analytical, critical and synoptic skills 3 •
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information retrieval skills in relation to primary and secondary source of information communication and presentation skills (using oral and written materials and information technology) scholarly skills, such as the ability to make a structured argument, reference the works of others, and assess evidence time planning and management skills the ability to engage, where appropriate, in constructive discussion in group situations and group-­‐work skills 4 SA2002 ETHNOGRAPHIC ENCOUNTERS Module Coordinator: Dr Mattia Fumanti (mf610) Ethnographic Encounters explores the emergence of fieldwork practice in social anthropology and reflexively considers the social, methodological and theoretical relations produced through ethnography, and the issues of analyzing and translating concepts in ethnographic writing. Students are guided in preparing, undertaking and writing up their own Ethnographic Encounters project. Social anthropologists use social relations as the medium as well as the object of their studies, and the module emphasizes the consideration of a researcher’s own part in a social scenario at every step of an ethnographic project from formulation, participant-­‐observation, interview methods, narratives to interpretation and writing-­‐up. The module follows a narrative of preparing, conducting and analysing a fieldwork project by considering the development of fieldwork practices, new ethnographic subjects and urban anthropology before turning to students’ own fieldwork projects and their interpretation. This year we have planned an art installation. Details of this art installation will be discussed during our first workshop. Assessment: This kind of teaching and learning emphasis on reflexive thinking and integrating discrete bodies of literature around an important personal experience requires an appropriate form of assessment. Please note: 100% Continuous Assessment. There is no examination. Module convener: Dr Mattia Fumanti (mf610). Please address problems to him. Lecturers: Dr Mattia Fumanti (mf610), Dr Adam Reed (ader), Dr Craig Lind (ctl3), Dr Stan Frankland (mcf1), Dr Aimée Joyce (aj69) Semester: Teaching: The module is divided into four Sections: Sections 1, 2 & 3 involve two weeks of lectures each, whereas Section 4 involves 4 weeks of lectures: three lectures per week, supported by weekly tutorials, and a series of workshops. Attendance in each component is compulsory. Venues: 2 Credits: 20 Irvine Lecture Theatre 5 Tutorials: Please check MMS for venues. Workshops: Irvine Lecture Theatre Class hour: 11am, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday Tutorials: Small group discussion focused on set readings and analytical tasks. Held weekly in the Department seminar room. An attendance register will be taken. Workshops: Assessment: Working in small groups with whole class in attendance. These may use film excerpts and analytical tasks to discuss and apply issues raised by each Section, or involve viewing a relevant film. Workshops take place in Weeks 2, 3, 5, 7 & 9. An attendance register will be taken. 100% continuous assessment. There are FOUR continuous assessment essays for this module, and NO examinations. Essays 1 and 2 are EACH worth 20% of the overall module assessment, and will assess Sections 1-­‐3. Students must choose questions from DIFFERENT Sections and may therefore only answer ONE question per Section. A book review will assess weeks 9 and 10. Students are required to submit a review of 1000 words, of either The Museum at the Top of the World by Clare Harris or Purity and Exile by
Lisa Malkki. Both books are available electronically through the library. The Book Review is worth 15%.
Essay 3 is worth 45% of the overall module assessment, and will assess the Ethnographic Encounters project. • Essay 1: 1500 word essay, from questions on EITHER Section 1 OR 2 [20%] Deadline: 23.59 Wednesday 24thFebruary 2016 • Essay 2: 1500 word essay, from questions on EITHER Section 2 OR 3 (noting the restrictions outlined above) [20%] Deadline: 23.59 Sunday 13th March 2016 • Book Review: 1000 word review for lectures 9 and 10 [15%] Deadline: 23.59 Friday 15th April 2016 • Essay 3: 3000 word Ethnographic Encounters project. [45%] Deadline: 23.59 Friday 6th May 2016 Online Reading List: An online reading list is available for this module. resourcelists.st-­‐
andrews.ac.uk It contains key readings for the course including all those necessary for the tutorials. Other readings are available in Short Loan and, in some cases, via MMS.
Office Hours: Tutors and lecturers have office hours – these hours will be announced at the first lecture and posted on the relevant lecturer’s 6 door. The open-­‐door availability during office hours is provided as a helpful support to discuss any issues arising from the Module. These may be especially useful during the ‘Ethnographic Encounters’ project. Please feel free to drop in at these times, or make an appointment by email. 7 SECTION 1 ENCOUNTERING SOCIAL THEORY: MARX, DURKHEIM AND WEBER WEEKS 1 & 2 Dr. Craig Lind, ctl3@st-­‐andrews.ac.uk, Room 48, United College (Quad)
Three thinkers are often considered to be the figureheads of modern social analysis: Karl Marx, Émile Durkheim, and Max Weber. Motivated by the upheavals in European social life of the 19th century, each was interested in the question of society and its relation to individual people. The questions motivating all three were: what sort of association is society, and what sustains it? The different theories that they developed have profoundly influenced our ideas about human nature, social relations, work and power. We need to look at their work and familiarise ourselves with their key concepts because most social theories that ethnographers and anthropologists use to understand people and their social lives are derived more or less directly from their work. This is in addition to their usefulness as theorists in their own right. This section will take us through a broad view of what an encounter with social theory might mean for us as anthropologists and for the sorts of knowledge we can produce. We will focus on the work of Marx, Durkheim and Weber and set their ideas in a broader framework. The aim of this section is, firstly, to outline the key aspects of the work of these three scholars. We will then look at some key themes in anthropology to explore the usefulness of each set of ideas for interpreting ethnographic encounters. We will aim at reaching a working knowledge of some of their foundational ideas in social analysis and their application in ethnographic work to assess the importance of understanding a writer’s theoretical perspective in order to understand their ethnography. LECTURE 1 INTRODUCING ETHNOGRAPHIC ENCOUNTERS MONDAY 25TH JANUARY This first lecture will outline the module narrative, and arrangements for teaching, learning and assessment. It will also introduce the Ethnographic Encounters fieldwork project. Tutorials for this module are held weekly, beginning in Week 1. Please sign up to a tutorial group immediately after this lecture via MMS: https://www.st-­‐andrews.ac.uk/mms/ 8 LECTURE 2 MARX I: ALIENATION – COMMODITY FETISHISM TUESDAY 26TH JANUARY This lecture introduces two key notions to the philosophy of Karl Marx and Marxism as a whole: alienation and commodity fetishism. The lecture will examine how these notions may help us understand relations between humans and objects, more particularly material products of human labour. By examining the ethnographic example of industrial mining in Bolivia, we will follow two anthropological approaches based on different readings of Marx (Nash and Taussig) so as to see how theory may be used, and also not so well used, by anthropologists faced with ethnographic realities. Readings: • Marx, K. Philosophic and Economic Manuscripts of 1844 (chapter: Estranged Labour) Available online: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/labour.htm • Ollman, B. Alienation: Marx's Conception of Man in a Capitalist Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976. • Meszaros , I. Marx’s Theory of Alienation. Aakar Books, 2006. • Lukacs, G. History & Class Consciousness (chapter: The Phenomenon of Reification) Available online: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lukacs/works/history/hcc05.htm • Taussig, M. Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America, New York: Columbia University Press, 2010. • Nash, J. We Eat the Mines and the Mines Eat Us: Dependency and Exploitation in Bolivian Tin Mines. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993. • Pfaffenburger, B. (1988). ‘Fetishized Objects and Humanized Nature: Towards an Anthropology of Technology’, Man (N.S.) 23: 236-­‐52. LECTURE 3 MARX II: HISTORICAL MATERIALISM – CLASS STRUGGLE THURSDAY 28TH JANUARY This lecture will examine Karl Marx’s core theory: historical materialism. We will seek to understand what is meant by the idea that the class struggle is the driving force of history, and will explore Marx’s critique of the political economy and its relevance for understanding social processes. The lecture will focus on two ethnographies of women workers in Malaysia and China respectively, asking to what extent Marx’s approach has been helpful in understanding life and work in these industrial settings. Readings: • Marx, K. Theses on Feuerbach, 1845; https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/theses.htm • Marx, K. The 18th Brumaire of Napoleon Bonaparte, 1852 (Chapter: Summary); https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-­‐brumaire/ • Berlin, I. Karl Marx: His Life and Environment. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978 (chapter: Historical Materialism). • Ong, A. Spirits of resistance and capitalist discipline: factory women in Malaysia. Albany : State University of New York Press, 1987. 9 •
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Pun Ngai, Made in China: Women Factory Workers in a Global Workplace. Durham: Duke University Press, 2005. W. Rosebery, ‘Marx and Anthropology’. Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 26 (October 1997): 25-­‐46. LECTURE 4 DURKHEIM: SOLIDARITY – ANOMIE FRIDAY 29TH JANUARY This lecture will examine Émile Durkheim’s ideas regarding what holds societies together. We will explore Durkheim’s theory that people in society share the same values and beliefs, or collective representations, and that the collective conscious reinforces these beliefs by shaping and controlling individual behaviour. Key to this model are the notions of solidarity and anomie, to which we will pay particular attention asking to what extent Durkheim’s social theory is a normative vision of society. With this in mind, we examine Durkheim’s theory in relation to two recent anthropological debates: on Tibetan self-­‐immolation and on suicide in different neoliberal contexts. Readings: • Durkheim, E. 1952. Suicide, a study in sociology. London: Routledge. Especially Book 3, Chapter 1. • Durkheim, E. 1984. The Division of labour in Society. Basingstoke: McMillan. Especially Book 1, Chapter 2 and 3 on Solidarity. • Herbert, C. Culture and Anomie: Ethnographic Imagination in the Nineteenth Century (Chapter: From Original Sin to Anomie). Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1991. • Livingston, J. 2009. ‘Suicide, risk, and investment in the heart of the African miracle’, Cultural Anthropology, 24 (4): 652-­‐680. • McGranahan, C. & Litzinger, R. ‘Self-­‐Immolation as Protest in Tibet’ [follow links in the main article of Cultural Anthropology to various short essays on Tibetan self-­‐
immolation] http://culanth.org/fieldsights/93-­‐self-­‐immolation-­‐as-­‐protest-­‐in-­‐tibet • Staples, J. & T. Widger. ‘Situating Suicide as an Anthropological Problem: Ethnographic Approaches to Understanding Self-­‐Harm and Self-­‐Inflicted Death’. Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry June 2012, Volume 36, Issue 2 pp 183-­‐203. • Niehaus, I. ‘Gendered Endings: Narratives of Male and Female Suicides in the South African Lowveld’. Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry June 2012, Volume 36, Issue 2, pp 327-­‐347. • La Fontaine, J. ‘Explaining Suicide: An Afterword’. Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry June 2012, Volume 36, Issue 2, pp 409-­‐418. LECTURE 5 WEBER: MEANING – INTENTIONALITY MONDAY 1st FEBRUARY This lecture will examine Max Weber’s work in relation to the problems of meaning and intentionality. Focusing on the importance placed by Weber on the thinking individual as a core unit of sociological analysis, we will explore the consequences of this emphasis for understanding human societies. By examining the application of this theory by 10 anthropologists such as Clifford Geertz we will seek to understand the importance and limitations of hermeneutics for anthropology. Returning to the question of work, we will examine Edo’s ethnography on crafting selves in Japanese factories and Yan’s ethnography of women workers in China, as an approach focusing not on the political but rather the moral economy of industrial labour. Readings • Weber, M. 1930. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. London: Allen and Unwin. Especially Chapter 5. • Weber, M. 1962. Basic concepts in sociology. London: Peter Owen. Especially Paragraphs 4-­‐6. • Weber, M., & W. G. Runciman, 1978. Max Weber: selections in translation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Especially Chapter 1. • Geertz, C. 1973. ‘Thick description: toward an interpretive theory of culture’, in C. Geertz (Ed.), The interpretation of cultures: selected essays. New York: Basic Books. • Keyes, C. 2002. ‘Weber and Anthropology’, Annual Review of Anthropology 31: 233-­‐
255. • Kondo, D. K. Crafting Selves: power, gender, and discourses of identity in a Japanese workplace. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990 • Yan Hairong. New Masters, New Servants: Migration, Development and Women Workers in China. Durham: Duke University Press, 2008. LECTURE 6: VALUE AND PROPERTY TUESDAY 2nd FEBRUARY This lecture examines how theories of value and property have been central to anthropological debates. The first part of the lecture will focus on the debate between Lissete Josephides and Marylin Strathern (roughly representing a tension between Feminist-­‐
Marxian and Feminist-­‐Weberian approaches to value) as regards women’s labour and alienation in Papua New Guinea. The second part of the lecture will focus on how, on the other hand, Marxian and Durkheimian approaches of value have been fruitfully combined by David Graeber’s utilisation of Marx and Mauss so as to make a provocative new anthropological reading of the Kwakiutl potlatch. Readings: • Graeber, D. 2001. Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of Our Dreams. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. • Josephides, L. The production of inequality: gender and exchange among the Kewa. London: Tavistock, 1985. • Strathern, M. The gender of the gift: problems with women and problems with society in Melanesia. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988. • Thomas, N. Entangled Objects: Exchange, Material Culture, and Colonialism in the Pacific. Cambridge (Mass): Harvard University Press, 1991. 11 •
Hann, C. M. (ed.) Property Relations: Renewing the Anthropological Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. (Chapters: Introduction AND J. Carrier “Property and Social relations in Melanesia”). LECTURE 7 THE STATE THURSDAY 4TH FEBRUARY Anthropology no longer operates primarily at the imagined margins of central power structures. This lecture examines anthropological approaches of the state and how they are informed by Weberian, Marxian and Durkhemian theories of power, instutionalisation and violence. Is the state an apparatus? A fantasy? Or perhaps a social relation? How is the state confronted, averted but also reproduced in everyday life? • Fassin, D. “The Trace: Violence, truth and the politics of the body”. Social Research 78: 2 (Summer 2011): 281-­‐298. • Clastres, P. Society Against the State: Essays in political anthropology. New York: Zone Books, 1989. • Taussig, M. Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man: A Study in Terror and Healing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991 (Chapter 1). • Mitchell, T. 1991. The Limits of the State: Beyond Statist Approaches and Their Critics. The American Political Science Review 85 (1). March, 77-­‐96. • Lynteris, C. “The State as a Social Relation: An Anthropological Critique”. Anthropology and Materialism (Fall 2013) Available online: http://am.revues.org/291 • Scott, J. C. The Art of Not Being Governed: an anarchist history of upland Southeast Asia. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. WORKSHOP: ENCOUNTERS PAST AND PRESENT I FRIDAY 5th FEBRUARY In this workshop, two honours students who have previously undertaken their own Ethnographic Encounters project will speak about their experience, tips for formulating and conducting a successful project and be available to respond to any questions. In this workshop we will also have a chance to talk about the Art Installation project. 12 ETHNOGRAPHIC ENCOUNTERS: I WEEK 3 Dr Mattia Fumanti mf610@st-­‐andrews.ac.uk, Room 19, United College (Quad) LECTURE 1: ETHNOGRAPHIC ENCOUNTERS MONDAY 8th FEBRUARY In this lecture we will look into thinking, planning and devising a project. What constitute an ethnographic encounter? How do we understand these encounters and their relations to social life? How can we capture them through observation, participation and narrativization? In particular I want us to reflect what are the implications of these encounters for our identities? As several contributors to a special issue of Anthropology Matters underline ‘The identities that are attributed to us and the roles we are placed in during fieldwork matter -­‐ to the people we study, to us, and to the research process’. This has of course wider implications for the production of knowledge. See Anthropology Matters 11 (1), special issue on ‘Fieldwork Identities’: http://www.anthropologymatters.com/index.php?journal=anth_matters&page=issue&op=v
iew&path%5B%5D=11 In particular the following articles in the volume: •
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Hovland, I. ‘Fieldwork Identities’: Introduction. Walker, M. ‘Priest, Development Worker or Volunteer?’ Abimbola, O. ‘Being Similar and Other Identification’ Pemunta, N. V. ‘Multiple identities’ Also see the classic work by Goffman: Goffman, E. 1961. ‘Preface’ in Encounters: Two Studies in the Sociology of Interaction, Indianapolis: Bobbs-­‐Merrill Educational Publishing. LECTURE 2: METHODS, ETHICS AND DESIGN TUESDAY 9th FEBRUARY This lecture will be devoted to thinking about how to go about fieldwork. We will look in particular into some of the theoretical, ethical and pragmatic issues of conducting research. What methods can we use in our encounters? What are the implications for conducting research? What are some of the ethical issues we may have to face? Consult the special issue of Anthropology Matters, 12 (1), ‘Exploring and Expanding the Boundaries of Research Methods’. 13 http://www.anthropologymatters.com/index.php?journal=anth_matters&page=issue&op=v
iew&path%5B%5D=30 In particular read the following: • Al Mohammed, H. ‘Epistemology contra methodology’ • Osterhudt, S. R. ‘The Field as Labyrinth’ • Campbell, J. ‘The problems of Ethics’ Also read: Melia, M. 2012. ‘Ethics and Ethnography: My Fieldwork Account in a Dundee Meditation Centre’, Ethnographic Encounters, 1 (1) • Venables, E. 2009. ‘If you give me some sexing’, In Anthropology Matters, 11, (1) • Busher, J. 2009. ‘Being an identity prop: some ethical implications’, In Anthropology Matters, 11, (1) • Smith, K. 2009. ‘Is a happy anthropologist a good anthropologist?’, In Anthropology Matters, 11, (1) And take a look at anthropologists’ ethical guidelines: •
http://www.theasa.org/ethics.htm http://www.aaanet.org/committees/ethics/ethcode.htm LECTURE 3: OBSERVATION, NOTE TAKING AND OTHER WAYS OF CAPTURING THE ENCOUNTERS THURSDAY 11th FEBRUARY In this lecture we will look at how to capture our encounters. How do we observe? In what ways should we observe the world? How should we write about what we observe? Are there other ways besides note taking and observation that would be better suited for our ethnographic encounters? What about art and other media? This last question would be particularly useful for our art installation’s project in week 11. • Vânău, I. 2012, ‘The personal darkroom: keeping in touch with family photographs’ In Ethnographic Encounters, 2 (1) • Hall, M. 2010. ‘Picturing the Difference’, In Anthropology Matters, 12 (1) • O’Brien, J. 2010. ‘Building Understanding’, In Anthropology Matters, 12 (1) • Soderstrom. J. 2010. ‘Ex-­‐combatants at the Polls’, In Anthropology Matters, 12 (1) • Sanjek, R. 1990. Fieldnotes: the makings of Anthropology. Ithaca: Cornell University Press • Hogan, S. 2011. ‘Images of Broomhall, Sheffield: Urban Violence, and Using the Arts as a Research Aid’, In Visual Anthropology, 24 (3): 266-­‐280. • Hogan, S. and Pink, S. 2010. ‘Routes to Interiorities: Art Therapy, Anthropology and knowing in Anthropology’, In Visual Anthropology, 23(2): 158–174. 14 •
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Huss. E. 2007. ‘Shifting Spaces and Lack of Spaces: Impoverished Bedouin Women's Experience of Cultural Transition through Arts-­‐Based Research’, Visual Anthropology, 21 (1): 58-­‐71. Teodoro da Cunha, E. 2010. ‘Images and Research among the Bororo of Mato Grosso, Brazil’, In Visual Anthropology, 23(4): 311-­‐329 WORKSHOP: FORMULATING AN ENCOUNTERS PROJECT I FRIDAY 12th FEBRUARY This is the first of the two workshops devoted to formulating your Ethnographic Encounters project. You will work in small groups and develop ideas and possibilities for your proposed project. We will also cover issues of planning the project work, and questions of the scale and scope in formulating a project. Please come prepared to the workshop having thought of some preliminary ideas. 15 SECTION TWO ANTHROPOLOGICAL ENCOUNTERS WEEKS 4 & 5 Dr Stan Frankland mcf1@st-­‐andrews.ac.uk, 1st Floor, 71 North Street ANTHROPOLOGICAL ENCOUNTERS In this part of the module, I will be looking at a number of disparate ways in which contemporary anthropology deals with the changing world in which we all live. By looking at certain subjects on the fringes of the modern discipline, I will hope to show you how almost anything can be anthropological. By taking some old anthropological theories and some interdisciplinary texts, I will attempt to show how they can be revivified and reworked in relation to issues both familiar and strange. LECTURE 1: THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF FLIP FLOPS MONDAY 15th FEBRUARY In this lecture, we will begin with a simple recycled object. How can we turn this tourist trinket into an object worthy of anthropological investigation? To answer this question, we will watch a short film and frame our understanding of the film in the context of Appadurai’s work on the social life of things. •
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Film: Flip Flotsam (Olif & Bateman 2003) Appadurai A. (ed.) 1986. The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Carrier N. 2005. ‘Miraa is cool’: the cultural importance of miraa (khat) for Tigania and Igembe youth in Kenya. In: Journal of African Cultural Studies, 17(2), pp.201-­‐218. Carrier N. 2006. Bundles of choice: Variety and the creation and manipulation of Kenyan Khat's value. In: Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology, 71(3), pp.415-­‐437. LECTURE 2: CONTEMPORARY MYTHOLOGIES TUESDAY 16th FEBRUARY From the armchair musings of Frazer through to the almost unreadable structuralism of the dreaded Lévi-­‐Strauss, myth has been one of the key topics within the development of social anthropology. This lecture avoids these ‘primitive’ bound theories in favour of Barthes understanding of our own mythological and semiotic systems. Just how myth bound are we? And what role do myths play in our own understanding of the world? 16 •
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Barthes R. 1957. Mythologies. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, Brownlie D. et al 2005. Culinary Tourism: An Exploratory Reading of Contemporary Representations of Cooking. In: Consumption, Markets and Culture, 8(1), pp.7–26 Frankland S. 2009. ‘The bulimic consumption of Pygmies: regurgitating an image of Otherness’. In: Robinson M. and Picard D. (eds), The Framed World: Tourism, Tourists and Photography. Farnham: Ashgate. Light D. 2007. Dracula tourism in Romania: Cultural Identity and the State. In: Annals of Tourism Research, 34(3), pp.746–765. McAlister E. 2012. Slaves, Cannibals, and Infected Hyper-­‐Whites: The Race and Religion of Zombies. In: Anthropological Quarterly, 85(2), pp.457–486. Peter Conrad’s radio series from 2014 in which he updates Barthes Mythologies: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04lhs21/episodes/guide LECTURE 3: THE RITUAL PROCESS REVISITED THURSDAY 18th FEBRUARY Anthropology has always been concerned with ritual activities. Turner’s elaboration of Van Gennep has become almost an intellectual given within the discipline. Ideas of liminality and communitas permeate the anthropological discourse. In this lecture, we revisit these ideas and hone in on his often forgotten concept of the liminoidal •
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Bauman Z. 2000. Liquid modernity. Oxford: Blackwell. Mackay Yarnal C. 2006. The Red Hat Society®: Exploring the Role of Play, Liminality, and Communitas in Older Women's Lives. In: Journal of Women & Aging, 18(3), pp.51-­‐73. Maffesoli M.1996. The Time of the Tribes: The Decline of Individualism in Mass Society. London: Sage. Prior J. & Cusack C.M. 2008. Ritual, Liminality and Transformation: secular spirituality in Sydney's gay bathhouses. In: Australian Geographer, 39(3), pp.271-­‐281. St John G. (ed.) 2008. Victor Turner and contemporary cultural performance. New York & Oxford: Berghahn Books. Tramacchi D. 2000. Field Tripping: Psychedelic communitas and Ritual in the Australian Bush. In: Journal of Contemporary Religion, 15(2), pp.201-­‐213. Turner V. 1969. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-­‐Structure. Harmondsworth: Penguin. FILM: HELLO PHOTO (NINA DAVENPORT, 1994) FRIDAY 19th FEBRUARY In her startling, exquisitely shot Hello Photo, documentarist Nina Davenport turns the conventions of the travelogue inside out. She takes us to India and abandons us there, leaving us to believe what we see through her eyes. Her movie replicates the experience of 17 being a traveller and thus a voyeur, of taking in sights without necessarily understanding their meaning. It also raises uncomfortable questions for the ethnographer. LECTURE 4: THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF NON-­‐PLACES MONDAY 22nd FEBRUARY Spaces or landscapes of travel and mobility are frequently referred to as being ‘placeless’, ‘abstract’, and ‘ageographical’. In this lecture, we will examine the work of Augé and his characterization of spaces such as airports and shopping malls as ‘non-­‐places’. We will also move beyond this rather dystopian view to look at the heterogeneity and materiality of the social networks bound up with the production of such environments. • Augé M. 2002. In the Metro. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press • Augé M. 2008 (1992). Non-­‐places : introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity. London & New York: Verso, • Bartkowiak A. 2012. Privacy in Public: Unified Fragmentation in New York Subway Space. In: Ethnographic Encounters, 1(1). • Dalakoglou D. 2010. The road: An ethnography of the Albanian–Greek cross-­‐border motorway. In: American Ethnologist, 37(1), pp.132-­‐149. • Dalakoglou D. & Harvey P. 2012. Roads and Anthropology: Ethnographic • Perspectives on Space, Time and (Im)Mobility. In: Mobilities, 7(4), pp.459–465. • Merriman P. 2004. Driving Places: Marc Augé, Non-­‐Places, and the Geographies of England’s M1 Motorway. In: Theory, Culture & Society, 21(4/5), pp.145–167. LECTURE 5: THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF PIRATES TUESDAY 23rd FEBRUARY From the swashbuckling of Errol Flynn through to the pantomime of Johnny Depp, the figure of the pirate has remained a potent symbol within the Euro-­‐American imagination. But what is piracy today? How has anthropology looked at the subject? And what can we learn from these encounters? •
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Condry I. 2004. Cultures of music piracy: An ethnographic comparison of the US and Japan. In: International Journal of Cultural Studies, 7(3), pp.343–363 Dawdy S.L. & Bonni J. 2012. Towards a General Theory of Piracy. In: Anthropological Quarterly, 85(3), pp.673–700. Dent A. 2012. Introduction: Understanding the War on Piracy, Or Why We Need More Anthropology of Pirates. In: Anthropological Quarterly, 85(3), pp.659-­‐672. Dent A. 2012. Piracy, circulatory legitimacy, and neoliberal subjectivity in Brazil. In: Cultural Anthropology, 27(1), pp.28–49. Luvaas B. 2010. Designer Vandalism: Indonesian Indie Fashion and the Cultural Practice of Cut ’n’ Paste. In: Visual Anthropology Review, 26(1) pp.1–16, Thomas K. 2009. Structural Adjustment, Spatial Imaginaries, and ‘‘Piracy’’ in Guatemala’s Apparel Industry. In: Anthropology of Work Review, XXX(1), pp.1-­‐9. 18 •
Thomas K. 2013. Brand “piracy” and postwar statecraft in Guatemala. In: Cultural Anthropology, 28(1), pp.144–160. LECTURE 6: PUNK ANTHROPOLOGY THURSDAY 25th FEBRUARY In the late 1970s, academics began to focus on youth groups that were deemed to be oppositional to the dominant society. Initially, groups such as punks and skinheads were viewed as class based subcultures bonded together by a shared taste in music, fashion and ownership of a unique form of cultural capital. How has this view changed with time and technological transformation? Bauman Z. 1992. Intimations of postmodernity. London: Routledge. Bourdieu P. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. London: Routledge. • Driver C. & Bennett A. 2015. Music Scenes, Space and the Body. In: Cultural Sociology, 9(1), pp. 99–115. • Glass P.G. 2012. Doing Scene: Identity, Space, and the Interactional Accomplishment of Youth Culture. In: Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 41(6), pp. 695–716. • Hancock B.H. & Lorr M.J. 2012. More than just a Soundtrack: Toward a Technology of the Collective in Hardcore Punk. In: Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 42(3), pp.320–346. • Hebdige D. 1979. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Methuen. • Maffesoli M. 1996. The Time of the Tribes: The Decline of Individualism in Mass Societies. London: Sage Publications. • Prior N. 2014. ‘It’s A Social Thing, Not a Nature Thing’: Popular Music Practices in Reykjavík, Iceland. In: Cultural Sociology, pp.1 –18. • Purchla J. 2011. The powers that be: Processes of control in ‘crew scene hardcore’. In: Ethnography, 12(2), pp. 198–223. WORKSHOP: FORMULATING AN ENCOUNTERS PROJECT II FRIDAY 26th FEBRUARY This is the second of two Workshops devoted to formulating your Ethnographic Encounters project. You will work in small groups and develop ideas and possibilities for your proposed project. We will also cover issues of planning the project work, and questions of the scale and scope in formulating a project. Please come prepared having made some more decisions about what kind of project your interests and ideas might lead to. You should email your proposed project in advance of this workshop. Everyone in the group should read each other papers and produce comments/questions and ideas. This is all very important to make this workshop truly peer lead. •
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19 SECTION 3 APPROACHING THE CITY WEEKS 6 & 7 Dr Adam Reed ader@st-­‐andrews.ac.uk Room 56, United College (Quad) This part of the course considers what an urban anthropology can bring to ‘classic’ theories of the city. It invites students to consider what an anthropological approach to the city might look like; and whether there can ever be anthropology of the city as opposed to anthropology in the city. Students will be introduced to grand urban theory (debates and historical accounts that seek to grasp the nature of the city as a social phenomenon and describe its processes), but also to urban ethnography and ethnographic descriptions of particular cities. Attention will be paid to the diverse ways of knowing and seeing the city, and to the range of strategies that make identification possible. For example, the tendency of popular and academic commentators to reify the city as a person, to ascribe it with what appears as a coherent character and atmosphere. The course will draw on anthropological and historical studies from many different cities, including my own work in London. As well as lecture room teaching and student reading, the broader implications for students’ upcoming research projects will be explored. LECTURE 1: THEORIES OF THE CITY MONDAY 29th FEBRUARY We shall consider some of the ‘classic’ theories of the city, and what an anthropological perspective can bring to them. Attention will fall on ‘the city’ as abstract category and individuated place; students will be asked to consider its qualities as an artefact and object of knowledge. This includes examining the kinds of historical trajectories ascribed to cities and the kinds of anxieties attempts to know the city produce (such as fears that cities are changing took quickly, that they are too vast and complex ever to know completely). Participants will be encouraged to read grand urban theory with these kinds of questions in mind. •
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Amin, A & Thrift, N. 2002. Cities: reimagining the urban. Cambridge: Polity Press [Introduction, chps 1 & 2]. Simmel, G. 1950. ‘The metropolitan and mental life’, in The Sociology of Georg Simmel. K. Wolff [ed]. New York: The Free Press Mumford, L. 1973. The City in history: its origins, transformations and its prospects. London: Pelican Books [chp 2]. Sassen S. 1991. The Global City. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 20 LECTURE 2: ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE CITY TUESDAY 1st MARCH Here we ask: what defines urban anthropology? Is it merely the fact that anthropologists conduct fieldwork in cities or can one begin to consider anthropology of cities? The debate is illustrated by looking at a few examples (Athens, Benares, London) where ethnographic descriptions of cities have been attempted. Low, S. 1996. ‘The anthropology of cities: imagining and theorizing the city’. In Annual Review of Anthropology 25: 383-­‐409. • Reed, A. 2002. ‘City of details: interpreting the personality of London’. In Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 8: 127-­‐141 • Faubion, J. 1993. Modern Greek Lessons: a primer in historical constructivism. Princeton: Princeton University Press [chp 2] • Parry, J. 1994. Death in Banares. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press [chp 1]. • Hannerz, U. 1980. Exploring the City: inquiries toward an urban anthropology. New York: Columbia [chp 3] LECTURE 3: THE CITY AS PERSON: ANTHROPOLOGY & URBAN SKETCH WRITING THURSDAY 3rd MARCH Here we examine the historical relationship between anthropological writing and travel writing, and in particular the development of urban sketch writing, which seeks to approach to know the city as an entity that possesses person-­‐like qualities. Sketch writers claim to be able to describe and capture the city as a whole by paying close attention to what they diagnose as its prevailing personality or character. Participants are invited to consider what this legacy brings to urban theory and to the development of anthropology of the city. • Clifford, J. 1997. Routes: travel and translation in the late twentieth century. Cambridge [Mass]: Harvard University Press. [chp 3] • Eade, J. 2000. Placing London: from imperial city to global city. Oxford: Berghahn. [Introduction] • Benjamin, W. 1979. One-­‐way street and other writings [essays entitled ‘Naples’, ‘Moscow’, ‘Marseilles’, ‘A Berlin Chronicle’]. Verso: London. • Madox, FF. 1905. The Soul of London. A survey of a Modern City. JM Dent: London. • Schlör J. 1998. Nights in the Big City. Paris, Berlin, London 1840-­‐1930. London: Reaktion Books [chp 1] • Reed, Adam. 2008. “Blog This’: surfing the metropolis and the method of London’. In Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 14: 387-­‐402. • Mehta, Suketu. 2005. Maximum City: Bombay lost and found. London: Review. •
FILM: FOREST OF BLISS FRIDAY 4TH MARCH NB: This films runs for 95mins and will be shown in entirety 21 Forest of Bliss (1987) by Robert Gardner This film attempts to take a radical ethnographic film sensibility and apply it to an urban setting. Forest of Bliss is very much in the 'panoramic' film tradition. It seeks to capture the lived experience and understanding that inhabitants and pilgrims have of their sacred city: Banaras [Varanasi]. As such, it offers a nice parallel to the anthropological study and description of cities that we explore in this part of the course. LECTURE 4: THE CITY AND KINSHIP MONDAY 7TH MARCH As well as reifying the city as a being or person, people often use it to draw out kin-­‐type relations. As an artefact, the city becomes a substitute for persons and for the divisions that define their relationships to each other. Here we reflect how classical anthropological categories such as gender, personhood and nationhood are reflected in the ways knowledge of cities is generated. •
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Borneman J. 1992. Belonging in the Two Berlins: kin, state and nation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press [chp 1]. Sennett R. 2002. Flesh and Stone: the body and the city in Western Civilization. London: Penguin [chp 10]. Donald J. 1999. Imagining the Modern City. The Athlone Press: London [chp 1]. Parsons D. 2000. Streetwalking the Metropolis: Women, the City, and Modernity. Oxford: Oxford University Press [Introduction]. Williams, Raymond 1973. The Country and the City. Chatto & Windus: London [chp 15]. LECTURE 5: COLONIAL AND POSTCOLONIAL CITIES: PLANNING AND MODERNISM TUESDAY 8TH MARCH Here we consider the ways in which cities have been explicitly constructed as artifacts to demonstrate the power and authority of particular colonial and postcolonial state bodies. The notion that cities can embody political and social ideals, particular knowledge formations, and demonstrate their efficacy is explored through a range of examples (Brasilia, New Delhi, Cairo, Rabat). •
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Holston J. 1989. The Modernist City: an anthropological critique of Brasília. Chicago: Chicago University Press [chp 1]. Mitchell T. 1988. Colonizing Egypt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press [chps 2 & 3]. Metcalf T. 1989. An Imperial Vision: Indian Architecture and Britain’s Raj. London: Faber [introduction]. Rabinow P. 1989. French Modern: norms and forms of the social environment. Chicago: Chicago University Press [chp 9]. Rama A. 1996. The Lettered City. Durham: Duke University Press [chp 1]. 22 LECTURE 6: CITY AS MAP THURSDAY 10TH MARCH We consider cartographic expressions of the city. This includes attempts to know the city through mapping it or through trying to turn it into a map. As well as telling the story of the relationship between perspective, cities and maps, we examine alternative mapping techniques and attempts to subvert the kinds of order maps can impose (with particular reference to Morocco). Drawing on the previous lectures, we also look at the way social memory finds expression in public maps. Finally, we examine other kinds of artifacts generated by the desire to know the city better. •
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Auge M. 2002. In the Metro. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press [chp1]. Pandolfo S. 1997. Impasse of the Angels. Chicago: Chicago University Press [chp 1]. Lynch K. 1960. The image of the city. Cambridge: The MIT Press [chp 3]. Olson, David. R. 1994. The World on Paper: the conceptual and cognitive implications of writing and reading. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press [chp 10]. Sadler S. 1998 The Situationalist City. Cambridge: The MIT Press [chp 2]. WORKSHOP: MAPPING A CITY & ONLINE ETHNOGRAPHY FRIDAY 11TH MARCH In this workshop we will explore further how we come to know cities and develop knowledge about them. In particular, we will focus on the kinds of encounters that cities seem to promote and the technologies by which persons seek to grasp or capture these environments. We will also explore the relationship between urban knowledge and online communities; this will include an examination of the ways knowledge of the city and knowledge of the Internet can intersect, but also a consideration of the issues around conducting online ethnography. Students will be broken into smaller groups and work on group tasks designed to draw out these aspects further. These will focus on: 1] Issues of spatial proximity and distance in cities 2] Mapping 3] Ideas of cities as persons 4] Virtual cities & online ethnography of the urban Of course, the workshop will depend on students covering the readings listed in the course booklet; so make sure you do some reading. You should come prepared to talk and take part. 2 WEEK EASTER VACATION 14th MARCH-­‐ 25th MARCH 2016 23 SECTION 4 ETHNOGRAPHIC ENCOUNTERS II WEEK 8 Dr Mattia Fumanti mf610@st-­‐andrews.ac.uk, Room 19, United College (Quad) LECTURE 1: TELLING STORIES AND WRITING-­‐UP MONDAY 28TH MARCH What kind of stories people tell in the ethnographic encounters? What kind of narratives do they use? Are rumours valid stories? How do we as anthropologists (re)-­‐tell these stories? What stories can we tell? What devices can we use to tell these stories? Are there any particular methods? What to do about writing up? In this lecture we begin to think about some of the issues anthropologist confronts in telling stories. • Fabian, J. 2000. ‘Out of our minds: reason and madness in the exploration of Central Africa’, Berkeley, University of California Press. See also Anthropology Matters (2007), 9 (2), special issue, ‘Writing up and feeling down’ http://www.anthropologymatters.com/index.php?journal=anth_matters&page=issue&op=v
iew&path%5B%5D=15 In particular see the editorial introduction by Ingie Hovland and the following contributions: • O’Hare, ‘Getting down to writing up’ • Calestani, Kyryakis and Tassi ‘Three narratives of anthropological engagement’ • Matsaert, Ahmed, Hussan and Islam ‘The dangers of writing up’ LECTURE 2: NARRATIVE APPROACHES I: CLINICAL AND ETHNOGRAPHIC APPROACHES TO ILLNESS AND NARRATIVE TUESDAY 29th MARCH In this lecture we consider narrative approaches in medical anthropology which seem to have arisen in part as an attempt to gain access to the views and perspectives of informants. What are some of the advantages of narrative approaches? Does illness pose particular challenges to the use of narrative? We will compare ‘anthropological’ illness narratives and illness narratives as used by medical doctors in clinical settings. Becker, Gay, Yewoubdar Beyene, and Pauline Ken. 2000. ‘Memory, Trauma, and Embodied Distress: The Management of Disruption in the Stories of Cambodians in Exile.’ Ethos 28(3):320-­‐45. 24 Bury, Michael. 1982. ‘Chronic Illness as Biographical Disruption.’ Sociology of Health and Illness 4:167-­‐82. • Byrne, Bridget. 2003. ‘Reciting the Self: Narrative Representations of the Self in Qualitative Interviews’, In Feminist Theory 4(1): 29-­‐49. [Available online. A similar version of this article is also available from http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/genderInstitute/pdf/narrating TheSelf.pdf.] • Garro, Linda C. and Cheryl Mattingly. 2001. ‘Narrative as Construct and as Construction: An Introduction’ In Narrative and the Cultural Construction of Illness and Healing, ed. by Cheryl Mattingly and Linda C. Garro. Berkeley: University of California Press. • Garro, Linda C. 1992. ‘Chronic Illness and the Construction of Narratives’, In Pain as Human Experience, ed. by Mary-­‐Jo DelVecchio Good, P.A. Brodwin, B.J. Good, and A. Kleinman, pp.100-­‐37. Berkeley: University of California Press. • Good, Byron J. 1994. ‘Chapter 6: The Narrative Representation of Illness’ (pp.135-­‐65) in Medicine, Rationality and Experience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. • Jackson, Jean E. 1992. ‘“After a While No One Believes You”: Real and Unreal Pain.’ In Pain as Human Experience, ed. by Mary-­‐Jo DelVecchio Good, P.A. Brodwin, B.J. Good, and A. Kleinman, pp.138-­‐68. Berkeley: University of California Press. • 09/01/14Greenhalgh, Susan. 2001. Under the Medical Gaze: Facts and Fictions of Chronic Pain. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press • Mattingly, Cheryl and Linda C. Garro (eds.). 2000. Narrative and the Cultural Construction of Illness and Healing. Berkeley: University of California Press. • Murphy, Robert F. 1987. The Body Silent. London: Phoenix House. • Ochs, Elinor and Lisa Capps. 1996. ‘Narrating the Self’. In Annual Review of Anthropology 25:19-­‐43. • Williams, Gareth H. 2000. ‘Knowledgeable Narratives’. In Anthropology & Medicine 7(1):135-­‐140. LECTURE 3: HEALTH RUMOURS: CIRCULATION, POLITICS AND MEANINGS THURSDAY 31st MARCH Gossip, rumour, and scandal are ‘classic’ topics in social anthropology. In recent years, the anthropological study of rumours has been deeply invested in health-­‐related rumours, on topics as diverse as HIV infection, avian influenza, the contamination of British beef, and the safety of childhood vaccinations. Classically, anthropologists have argued that rumours, scandals, gossip and the diverse interpretation of their material ‘facts’ can serve a social function in ‘levelling’ status hierarchies. More recent scholarship on the relationship between science and society has moved beyond a ‘functionalist’ understanding of health-­‐
related rumours to consider how popular anxieties reveal the complex relationship between citizens and science, risk and trust, and politics and medicine – within a media-­‐savvy, globalised polity. In this class, we draw together two strands of anthropological theory: research on the social construction of ‘risk,’ and research on the social functions of ‘rumours.’ This class will help us rethink and challenge ideas of ‘culture’ and ‘knowledge’ in 25 health, as we consider how to balance the conflicting demands of ethnographic sensitivity, accessibility, and the concerns of policy-­‐makers. • Adams, Abigail E. 1998. ‘Gringas, Ghouls and Guatemala: The 1994 Attacks on North American Women Accused of Body Organ Trafficking’. In Journal of Latin American Anthropology 4(1):112-­‐33. [Available online.] • Boholm, Asa. 1996. ‘Risk Perception and Social Anthropology: Critique of Cultural Theory’. In Ethnos 61(1-­‐2):64-­‐84. • Caplan, Pat. 2000. ‘Introduction: Risk Revisited’. In Risk Revisited, ed. by Pat Caplan, pp.1-­‐28. London: Pluto Press. • Day, Sophie. 2000. ‘The Politics of Risk among London Prostitutes’. In Risk Revisited, ed. by Pat Caplan, pp.29-­‐58. London: Pluto Press. • Gluckman, Max. 1963. ‘Gossip and Scandal’. In Current Anthropology 4(3):307-­‐16. • Butt, Leslie. 2005. ‘“Lipstick Girls” and “Fallen Women”: AIDS and Conspiratorial Thinking in Papua, Indonesia’. In Cultural Anthropology 20(3):412-­‐42. • Caplan, Pat. 2000. ‘“Eating British Beef with Confidence”: A Consideration of Consumers’ Responses to BSE in Britain’. In Risk Revisited, ed. by Pat Caplan, pp.184-­‐
203. London: Pluto Press. • Feldman-­‐Savelsberg, Pamela, Flavien T. Ndonko, and Gergis Schmidt-­‐Ehry. 2000. ‘Sterilizing Vaccines or the Politics of the Womb: Retrospective Study of a Rumor in Cameroon’. In Medical Anthropology Quarterly 14(2):159-­‐79. • Kroeger, Karen A. 2003. ‘AIDS Rumors, Imaginary Enemies, and the Body Politic in Indonesia’. In American Ethnologist 30(2):243-­‐57. • Poltorak, Mike, Melissa Leach, James Fairhead and Jackie Cassell. 2005. ‘“MMR Talk” and Vaccination Choices: An Ethnographic Study in Brighton’. In Social Science & Medicine 61(3):709-­‐19. • Smith, Daniel Jordan. 2001. ‘Ritual Killing, 419, and Fast Wealth: Inequality and the Popular Imagination in South-­‐eastern Nigeria’. In American Ethnologist 28(4):803-­‐
26. • Stewart, Pamela and Andrew Strathern. 2003. Witchcraft, Sorcery, Rumors, and Gossip. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. NARRATIVE APPROACHES II: PRESENTATION OF PRACTICUM FRIDAY 1st APRIL In this week’s class, students will present their practical exercise: the critical examination of an illness/healing narrative that they have collected, recorded, transcribed and analysed. We will return to our discussion of the difference between ‘anthropological’ illness narratives and illness narratives that are used by doctors in clinical settings, and critically assess the movement towards ‘narrative’ approaches in clinical medicine. Further readings: • Good, Byron J. 1994. ‘Chapter 3: How Medicine Constructs its Objects’ (pp.65-­‐87) in Medicine, Rationality and Experience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 26 •
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Greenhalgh, Trisha and Brian Hurwitz. 1999. ‘Narrative Based Medicine: Why Study Narrative?’ In British Journal of Medicine (BMJ) 318:48-­‐50. Launer, John. 1999. ‘Narrative Based Medicine: A Narrative Approach to Mental Health in General Practice’. In British Journal of Medicine (BMJ) 318:117-­‐9. McKevitt, Christopher. 2000. ‘Short Stories about Stroke: Interviews and Narrative Production’. Anthropology & Medicine 7(1):79-­‐96. Monks, Judith A. 2000. ‘Talk as Social Suffering: Narratives of Talk in Medical Settings’. In Anthropology & Medicine 7(1):15-­‐38. Skultans, Vieda. 2000. ‘Narrative Illness and the Body’. In Anthropology & Medicine 7(1):5-­‐13. 27 INTERPRETING STORIES FROM THE FIELD WEEKS 9 & 10 Dr Aimée Joyce, aj69|@st-­‐andrews.ac.uk 1st Floor, North Street Malinowski said that “fieldwork consists only and exclusively in the interpretation of chaotic social reality…” (1948, 238). This series of lectures focuses on how anthropologists approach that interpretation once they leave the field. How do anthropologists organise, make sense of, and communicate ethnographic data? Over the next two weeks we will discuss how anthropologists decide what does and doesn’t make it into their ethnographies. We will study the literary techniques anthropologists use to contextualise and interpret their works. We will also consider the importance of reflexivity and position in the interpretation of data. Finally, we will assess what happens at the edge of anthropology, spaces where anthropology encounters art and literature. We will explore all of the above through two ethnographies. During the first week we will discuss reflexivity, ethnographic voice and demarcating the field through Lisa Malkki 'Purity and Exile: Violence, Memory and National Cosmology among Hutu Refugees in Tanzania'. In the second week we will turn to Clare Harris’s The Museum on the Roof of the World: art, politics, and the representation of Tibet in order to talk about representation and the place of art in anthropology. LECTURE 1: WHERE WAS THE FIELD? MONDAY 4TH APRIL One of the first things we need to contend with when we finish our research is the continuing connections we have with our fieldsites. We start by asking, where can we draw boundaries for our data analysis? What can we include/ exclude in our ethnographies? What social networks and which narratives should we incorporate into the final text? • Amit, V. (2000). ‘Introduction: constructing the field’ In Amit, V. Constructing the Field: ethnographic fieldwork in the contemporary world. Routledge • Behar, R. (1996) ‘My Mexican Friend Martha who Lives across the Border from Me in Detroit’ In Behar, R. The Vulnerable Observer: anthropology that breaks your heart. Beacon Press • Delmont, S (2002) ‘Leaving the Dim-­‐Moon City of Delight’ in Fieldwork in Education Settings: methods, pitfalls and perspectives. Routledge. • Miller, B & L. Humphreys, (2004). ‘Keeping in Touch: maintaining contacts with stigmatized subjects’. In Pole, C. Fieldwork, 4 Volumes, Sage. • Richardson, T. (2008) ‘Kaleidoscopic Odessa’ In Richardson, T. Kaleidoscopic Odessa: history and place in contemporary Ukraine. University of Toronto Press. • Strathern, M. (1996) ‘Cutting the Network’ In JRAI 2(3): pp 517-­‐535 28 LECTURE 2: SPEAKING ETHNOGRAPHICALLY TUESDAY 5TH APRIL What does it mean to, write ethnographically? In this lecture we will be discussing thick description and contextualisation. We will explore how these two techniques help us to translate our research into text. We will also begin to think about the possibility and limitations of ethnographic authority. • Álvarez Roldán, A. (2002). ‘Writing ethnography. Malinowski’s fieldnotes on Baloma’. In Social Anthropology 10(3): pp 377-­‐393 • Asad, T. (1986). ‘The Concept of Cultural Translation in British Social Anthropology’ in Clifford J. & G. Marcus. Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. University of California Press • Geertz, C. (1973). ‘Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture’. In Geertz, C. The Interpretation of Cultures. Basic Books • Geertz, C. (1973). ‘Deep Play: Notes on a Balinese Cockfight’. In Geertz, C. The Interpretation of Cultures. Basic Books • Hammersley, M. (2008). ‘On Thick Description: interpreting Clifford Geertz’, in M. Hammersley. Questioning Qualitative Inquiry. London: Sage • Hastrup, K. (1995). ‘The Language Paradox: on the limits of words’ In A Passage to Anthropology: between experience and theory. Routledge. • Malkki, L. (1995) ‘The Mythico-­‐History’ In Malkki, L. Purity and Exile: violence, memory, and national cosmology among Hutu refugees in Tanzania. University of Chicago Press. • Roseberry, W. (1982). ‘Balinese Cockfights and the Seduction of Anthropology’. Social Research, 49(4): pp (1013-­‐1028) • Shankman, P., et al. (1984). ‘The thick and the thin: on the interpretive theoretical program of Clifford Geertz’, in Current Anthropology, 25 (3), pp: 261–280. LECTURE 3: REFLEXIVITY AND POSITIONALITY THURSDAY 7TH APRIL In SA2001 you studied reflexivity in relation to Writing Culture (Clifford & Marcus 1986) Writing Culture explored the literary aspects of ethnography and along with feminist anthropology created the basis for the ‘reflexive turn’. In this lecture we return to the idea of reflexivity and think about how anthropologists position themselves within their own writing. •
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Abu Lughod, L. (1993). ‘Introduction’. Writing Women’s Worlds: Bedouin Stories. University of California Press Davis, C. (2007). ‘Writing Up, Concluding’ In Reflexive Ethnography: A guide to researching self and others. Routledge Hastrup, K. (1995). ‘The Inarticulate Mind: on the point of awareness’ In A Passage to Anthropology: between experience and theory. Routledge. 29 •
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Kanaaneh, R. (2002). ‘Introduction. Placing’ In Birthing the Nation: Strategies of Palestinian Women in Israel. University of California Press. Pratt Walton, S. (1993). ‘Jean Briggs’s Never in Anger as an Ethnography of Experience’ in Critique of Anthropology. 13(4): pp379-­‐399 Malkki, L. (1995) ‘Postscript: Return of Genocide’ In Malkki, L. Purity and Exile: violence, memory, and national cosmology among Hutu refugees in Tanzania. University of Chicago Press. Ruby, J. & B. Myerhoff, (1982). ‘Introduction’ In Ruby, J. A Crack in the Mirror: Reflexive Perspectives in Anthropology. University of Pennsylvania Press. Salzman, P.C. (2002) ‘On Reflexivity’ In American Anthropologist. 104(3): pp805-­‐813. Tedlock, B. (1991). ‘From Participant Observation to the Observation of Participation: The Emergence of Narrative Ethnography’ Journal of Anthropological Research. 47(1): 69-­‐-­‐-­‐94. LECTURE 4: FILM FRIDAY 8TH APRIL News from Home – Chantal Akerman Chantal Akerman, a Belgian filmmaker living in New York, entangles letters from her mother and images of the city in order to explore the idea of home. LECTURE 5: REPRESENTATION MONDAY 11TH APRIL This lecture is an introduction to the idea of representation, and its dual meaning. A representation is an object, image or performance, which “stands for” something else; it is also the act of a political representative. Therefore, in this lecture we will discuss the politics of how anthropologists attempt to represent their fieldwork for an academic audience. What responsibility do we have to the people we researched with, should we attempt to speak for others and can we find a way to present our work which does not disguise its contradictions and complexities. • Asad, T. (1995). Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter. Humanity Books. • Clifford, J. (2012) ‘Feeling Historical’ In Cultural Anthropology. 27(3): pp 417-­‐426 • Harris, C. (2012). ‘Introduction’ In The Museum on the Roof of the World: art, politics and the representation of Tibet. University of Chicago Press. • Lutkehaus, N. & J. Cool, (1999). ‘Paradigms Lost and Found: the “crisis of representation” and visual anthropology’ In J.M. Gaines & M. Renov. Collecting Visible Evidence. University of Minnesota Press. • Marcus G. & M. Fischer (1986). ‘A Crisis of Representation in the Human Sciences’ in Anthropology as Cultural Critique. University of Chicago Press. • MacDougall, D. (1991). ‘Whose Story Is It?’ in Visual Anthropological Review. 7(2): pp 2-­‐10. • Vargas-­‐Cetina, G. (2013). ‘Introduction’ In Anthropology and the Politics of Representation. University of Alabama Press. 30 LECTURE 6: ANTHROPOLOGY AND ART I: SURREALISM TUESDAY 12TH APRIL In the following two lectures we think about how art and anthropology are interconnected, and ask if we can learn anything from this relationship. We start with a discussion of Surrealism and its use of African art and anthropological writings about Africa. Were the surrealists appropriating African art or did their work of re-­‐contextualising help anthropologists to understand objects like fetishes and masks in a new way? • Clifford, J. (1981) ‘On Ethnographic Surrealism’ in Comparative Studies in Society and History. 23(4): pp 539 – 564. • Enwezor, O. & O. Oguibe (1999). Reading the Contemporary: African art from theory to the market place. INIVA. pp: 11-­‐29 • Gell, A. (1996). ‘Vogel’s Net: traps as artworks and artworks as traps’ in Journal of Material Culture 1(1): pp15-­‐38 • Harris, C. (2012). ‘The Invention of Tibetan Contemporary Art’ In The Museum on the Roof of the World: art, politics and the representation of Tibet. University of Chicago Press. • Hollier, D. (2006). ‘The Question of Lay Ethnography’ In Ades and Baker. Undercover Surrealism: Georges Bataille and Documents. MIT Press. • Kelly, J. (2007a). ‘Introduction’ In Art, Ethnography and the Life of Objects; Paris, c. 1925-­‐35. Manchester University Press • Kelly, J. (2007b). ‘Discipline and Indiscipline: the ethnographies of Documents’ In Papers of Surrealism, Issue 7. • Morphy, H. (1994). ‘The Anthropology of Art’ in Ingold, T. Companion Encyclopaedia of Anthropology. Routledge. • Russell, C (1999). ‘Surrealist Ethnography’ In Experimental Ethnography: the work of film in the age of video. Duke University Press. LECTURE 7: ANTHROPOLOGY AND ART II: THEN ANTHROPOLOGIST AS ARTIST/THE ARTIST AS ANTHROPOLOGIST THURSDAY 14TH APRIL In the last years, many artists have turned to anthropology. Ethnography has become a method in what participatory, site specific and post-­‐colonial art. At the same time, “participative” and experimental research practices are becoming widespread in Anthropology. In this lecture we look at the work of a number of anthropologists and artists who blur the line between the disciplines. • Bishop, C. (2004) ‘Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics’ In October, 110: pp 51-­‐79 • Coles, A. (2000) Site Specificity: The Ethnographic Turn. Black Dog. • Foster, H. (1995) ‘The Artist as Ethnographer?’ in Marcus & Myers. The Traffic in Culture. University of California Press. Or republished in In Foster, H. (1999) The Return of the Real. MIT Press 31 •
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Harris, C. (2012). ‘The Buddha goes Global’ In The Museum on the Roof of the World: art, politics and the representation of Tibet. University of Chicago Press. Mjaaland, T. (2013). ‘Traversing Art Practice and Anthropology: Notes on ambiguity and epistemological uncertainity’. In Schneider & Wright. Anthropology and Art Practice. Bloomsbury. Myers, F. (1991). Representing Culture: The Production of Discouse(s) for Aboriginal Acrylic Paintings. In Cultural Anthropology. 6(1): pp26-­‐62 WORKSHOP ON EXPERIMENTAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND RESPONSIBILITY FRIDAY 15TH APRIL In this workshop we will discuss Righteous Dopefiend by Philippe Bourgeois and Jeffery Schonberg. This book interweaves dialogue, fieldnotes, photographs and theoretical analysis. Be forewarned the images in this book are graphic, depicting the act of drug taking as well as its consequences. We will discuss representation, ethnographic voice, reflexivity and the place of art in anthropology through this one text. • Bourgeois P. & J. Schonberg (2009). Righteous Dopefiend. University of California Press. 32 ETHNOGRAPHIC ENCOUNTERS III WEEK 11 Dr Mattia Fumanti mf610@st-­‐andrews.ac.uk, Room 19, United College (Quad) LECTURE 1: PREPARING AN ART INSTALLATION MONDAY 18TH APRIL In this week we will be working on our end of course Art Installation. Bring your own photographs, audio recordings or videos and join in the discussion on how to make this art installation. LECTURE 2: PREPARING AN ART INSTALLATION TUESDAY 19TH APRIL LECTURE 3: PREPARING AN ART INSTALLATION THURSDAY 21ST APRIL LECTURE 4: ART INSTALLATION ST. SALVATOR’S QUAD FRIDAY 22ND APRIL In this final lecture you will work on the last details of the Art installation. The art installation will take place at 8:00 pm in Salvator’s Quad. 33 TUTORIALS Tutorials are held weekly beginning in Week 1. Please sign up to a tutorial group via MMS: http://www.st-­‐andrews.ac.uk/mms/ TUTORIAL 1 This first tutorial will serve as an introduction to your tutor, to arrangements for tutorials and the 100% continuous assessment basis of this module, and to the Ethnographic Encounters project. Although some way off yet, this tutorial will outline how to go about the formulation of a project. Each tutors hold weekly office hours, and you will be advised of your tutor’s hours and office location in this session. In formulating your project over the coming weeks, students are advised to make use of an opportunity to discuss your ideas on a one to one basis with your tutor. Please take a look at some of the past projects on the Ethnographic Encounters webpage: http://ojs.st-­‐andrews.ac.uk/index.php/SAEE TUTORIAL 2 Anti-­‐colonial struggles in Africa were in their vast majority led by Marxist-­‐Leninist groups and parties. Examining two ethnographies, this tutorial asks to what extent is Marx’s theory of the social an adequate perspective for analysing these struggles, especially as it regards the way in which they involved a dialogue between “tradition” and “modernity”. Readings: • West, H. G. Kupilikula: governance and the invisible realm in Mozambique. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2001. Chapter 16 [Revolution, Science and Sorcery] • Lan, D. Guns & Rain: guerillas & spirit mediums in Zimbabwe. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985. Part 3 [Sons of the Soil] TUTORIAL 3 To what extent can Marx’s, Weber’s and Durkheim’s theories of the social help us understand gender-­‐related issues? This tutorial examines the question in relation to prostitution or sex work in two distinct ethnographic settings. Readings: • Nancel, L. Ethnography and prostitution in Peru. London: Pluto Press, 2001. Chapter 3. • Day, S. On the game: women and sex work. London: Pluto Press, 2005. Chapter: "Playing the Market Against the State" 34 TUTORIAL 4 This tutorial will be a chance to discuss further some of your ideas for your ethnographic encounters project. In particular it will be helpful to through about the methods, ethics and design as well as notes taking, observation and other ways of capturing ethnographic encounters. Please come prepared to talk about some of the aspects of your project. •
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Hovland, I. ‘Fieldwork Identities’: Introduction. Anthropology Matters 11 (1), special issue on ‘Fieldwork Identities’: http://www.anthropologymatters.com/index.php?journal=anth_matters&page=issu
e&op=view&path%5B%5D=11 Melia, M. 2012, ‘Ethics and Ethnography: My Fieldwork Account in a Dundee Meditation Centre’, in Ethnographic Encounters, 1 (1) Vânău, I. (2012), ‘The personal darkroom: keeping in touch with family photographs’ in Ethnographic Encounters, 2 (1 TUTORIAL 5 The Anthropology of Trash Many moons ago, in her seminal book Purity and Danger (1966), Mary Douglas raised the idea of ‘dirt as matter out of place’. Although Douglas’s work on ritual cleanness and uncleanness is now long out of date, the purpose of this tutorial is to reconsider her general point in relation to the political ecology of trash. Is garbage simply everyday matter out of place? Whose place are we thinking of? Is my trash your treasure? • Millar K. 2008. Making Trash into Treasure: Struggles for Autonomy on a Brazilian Garbage Dump. In: Anthropology of Work Review, XXIX(2), pp.25-­‐34. • Reno J. 2009. Your Trash is someone’s Treasure: The Politics of Value at a Michigan Landfill. In: Journal of Material Culture, 14(1), pp.29–46 TUTORIAL 6 The Anthropology of Disgust I am disgusted by the execution videos released by the Islamic State. The smell of mussels disgusts me. I find the casual racism of the Bongo Ball quite disgusting. What is this sense of disgust that seems to unit three unrelated matters? How do we turn our feelings of disgust towards other people? In this tutorial, the idea is to think about how anthropology approaches this vague yet powerful emotional response. • Durham D. 2011. Disgust and the Anthropological Imagination. In: Ethnos, 76 (2), pp.131–156. • Tyler I. 2008. “Chav mum chav scum”: Class disgust in contemporary Britain. In: Feminist Media Studies, 8(1), pp.17-­‐34
35 TUTORIAL 7 In this tutorial we set out to examine further the ways in which cities are approached and known, both as abstract entities and particular places. Through a discussion of two readings I hope that we can draw out an anthropological contribution to urban knowledge. Our debate should be grounded in group reflection upon our own knowledge of individual cities [students should come prepared to talk about cities they know]. First reading: read the classic essay by Simmel ‘The metropolitan and mental life’. This piece illustrates a common starting point for urban theory; it is premised on the assumption of a movement from countryside to city [approaching the metropolis from the outside]. While reading this essay, try to think about your own entries into cities, in particular those moments when you have approached them for the first time [perhaps on holiday]. Second reading: read the article by Reed ‘City of details: interpreting the personality of London’. Here, the author is dealing with subjects [walking tour guides] who already conceive themselves within the city and seek to know it in a ‘better’ manner than other inhabitants [approaching the metropolis from the inside]. While reading this piece, try to think about your knowledge of a familiar city [you may not have lived in a city, but you may visit one regularly or have strong impressions of a place from television, literature and film] and how it relates to other ways of knowing that place. •
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Simmel, G. 1950. ‘The metropolitan and mental life’, in The Sociology of Georg Simmel. K. Wolff [ed]. New York: The Free Press. Reed, A. 2002. ‘City of details: interpreting the personality of London’. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 8: 127-­‐141. TUTORIAL 8 In this tutorial we will focus on the ways in which cities have been linked to political economy and been seen to embody social ideals. Students should reflect upon the ideological claims attached to the practice of urban planning and [re] construction, with particular reference to colonialism and the emergence of the post-­‐colonial state. Holston J. 1989. The Modernist City: an anthropological critique of Brasíla. Chicago: Chicago University Press [chp 1] • Mitchell T. 1988. Colonizing Egypt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press [chps 2 & 3] TUTORIAL 9 This tutorial will provide a further chance to voice details, sketches and episodes from your own Encounters project, to see in each case what kinds of anthropological story might emerge and how we might go about telling it. •
Students are at various stages within their encounters, and the format of this tutorial will make it useful irrespective of what phase of a project has been reached. It may be useful in this session to work in smaller groups to discuss common issues arising from the particular stage reached with a project. Please come prepared to talk about some aspect of your project and having thought about how anthropologists go about telling stories to describe and convey the social world encountered around us. • Patterson, Sophie. 2012. ‘Bagpipes and Busking: Selling Yourself, Selling the City’, In Ethnographic Encounters, 1 (1), http://ojs.st-­‐
andrews.ac.uk/index.php/SAEE/article/view/351/306 • Hardt, K., 2012. ‘Dietary choices as reflective responses to modern food practices: vegetarian, vegan and low meat eating students in St Andrews’, in Ethnographic Encounters, 3 (1), http://ojs.st-­‐andrews.ac.uk/index.php/SAEE/article/view/552/491 • Hildred, B. 2012. ‘The Illusive Local’: Abandoning the Student Local Dichotomy in St Andrews’ in Ethnographic Encounters, 2 (1) http://ojs.st-­‐
andrews.ac.uk/index.php/SAEE/article/view/457/409 TUTORIAL 10 In this tutorial you will be discussing ethnographic authority. Considering what goes in and gets left out of ethnographies, context, thick description, reflexivity and positionality assess how convinced you are by each of the texts. Think about the various forms of data that go into each chapter (ethnography, history, literature, interviews, life histories) and assess how well each anthropologist translates their fieldwork for the audience. • Geertz, C. (1973). ‘Deep Play: Notes on a Balinese Cockfight’. In Geertz, C. The Interpretation of Cultures. Basic Books • Malkki, L. (1995) ‘The Danger of Assimilation and the Purity of Exile’ In Malkki, L. Purity and Exile: violence, memory, and national cosmology among Hutu refugees in Tanzania. University of Chicago Press. TUTORIAL 11 Whose story is it? In this tutorial you will address the thorny issue of representation. The ‘crisis of representation’ that accompanied the Writing Culture turn, asked if anthropologists were capable of representing the worlds of others. Recent work has asked what responsibility anthropologists have to their fieldsite when representing it in film, photography, and writing. Why can representations be problematic and how have anthropologists tried to address this issue? • Harris, C. (2012). ‘Photography and the Politics of Memory’ In The Museum on the Roof of the World: art, politics and the representation of Tibet. University of Chicago Press. 37 •
MacDougall, D. (1991). ‘Whose Story Is It?’ in Visual Anthropological Review. 7(2): pp 2-­‐10. 38 ESSAY QUESTIONS
NB: 100% Continuous Assessment. There are FOUR continuous assessment essays for this module, and NO examinations. Please treat these deadlines as the latest times by which Essays are due. Please also feel free to submit your work ahead of these deadlines. Essays 1 and 2 are EACH worth 20% of the overall module assessment, and will assess Sections 1-­‐3. Students must choose questions from DIFFERENT Sections and may therefore only answer ONE question per Section. A book review will assess weeks 9 and 10. Students are required to submit a review of 1000 words, of either Harris, C. (2012) The Museum on the Roof of the World: art, politics and the representation of Tibet. University of Chicago Press or Malkki, L. (1995) Purity and Exile: violence, memory, and national cosmology among Hutu refugees in Tanzania. University of Chicago Press. Both books are available electronically through the library. The Book Review is worth 15%. Essay 3 is worth 45% of the overall module assessment, the Ethnographic Encounters project. • Essay 1: 1500 word essay, from questions on EITHER Section 1 OR 2 [20%] Deadline: 23.59 Wednesday 24thFebruary 2016 • Essay 2: 1500 word essay, from questions on EITHER Section 2 OR 3 (noting the restrictions outlined above) [20%] Deadline: 23.59 Sunday 13th March 2016 • Book Review: 1000 word review for lectures 9 and 10 [15%] Deadline: 23.59 Friday 15th April 2016 • Essay 3: 3000 word Ethnographic Encounters project. [45%] Deadline: 23.59 Friday 6th May 2016 39 QUESTIONS FOR SECTION 1 1. Drawing on ethnographic examples, discuss the ways in which Marx’s theory of ‘alienation’ differs from Durkheim’s theory of ‘anomie’? •
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Durkheim, E. 1952. Suicide, a study in sociology. London: Routledge. Kain, P. 1993. ‘Marx, Housework, and Alienation’, in, Hypatia, 8: 1. 121-­‐144. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3810304 Marxist Internet Archive Encyclopaedia, ‘Alienation’ https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/a/l.htm McGranahan, C. & Litzinger, R. ‘Self-­‐-­‐-­‐Immolation as protest in Tibet’ [follow links in the main article of Cultural Anthropology to various short essays on Tibetan self-­‐-­‐-­‐ immolation] http://culanth.org/fieldsights/93-­‐-­‐-­‐self-­‐-­‐-­‐immolation-­‐-­‐-­‐as-­‐-­‐-­‐protest-­‐-­‐-­‐in-­‐
-­‐-­‐tibet Taussig, M. Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America, New York: Columbia University Press, 2010. 2. Marx and Weber have very different ideas about the relationship between society and the economy: discuss their differences and use ethnographic examples to support your answer. •
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Hart, K. I983. ‘On commoditization’, in, From craft to industry Goody, Esther. Cambridge: University Press. Mauss, M. 1990. The Gift: the form and reason for exchange in archaic societies. London: Routledge. Palls, D. 2006. ‘Religion as Alienation: Karl Marx’, in, Eight Theories of Religion, Second Edition. Oxford: University Press. Parry, J. 1986. ‘The Gift, the Indian Gift and the 'Indian Gift'’, in, Man, New Series, 21: 3. 453-­‐473 http://www.jstor.org/stable/2803096 Weber, M. 1930. The Protestant Ethic and the spirit of Capitalism. London: Allen and Unwin. QUESTIONS FOR SECTION 2 3. Discuss how Anthropology has engaged with the recent Ebola crisis in certain West African countries. To do this, please use the following three websites. They all contain short pieces by anthropologists with expertise in the disease and in the region in question. http://www.culanth.org/fieldsights/585-­‐ebola-­‐in-­‐perspective 40 http://somatosphere.net/series/ebola-­‐fieldnotes -­‐ (there are 3 pages you can find from this link – you should look at them all) http://www.ebola-­‐anthropology.net These further readings will also be useful and enable you to expand upon certain ways that Anthropology has reflected upon Ebola. • Brown H. et al. 2015. Extending the “Social”: Anthropological Contributions to the Study of Viral Haemorrhagic Fevers. In: PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, pp. 1-­‐4. • Brown H & Kelly A.H. 2014. Material proximities and hotspots: toward an anthropology of viral hemorrhagic fevers. In: Medical anthropology quarterly, 28 (2). pp. 280-­‐303. • Chandler C. et al. 2015. Comment: Ebola: limitations of correcting misinformation. In: The Lancet, 385, pp. 1275-­‐1277. • Hewlett B.S. & Hewlett B.L. 2008. Ebola, Culture and Politics: The Anthropology of an Emerging Disease. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth. (Chapter 1 is freely available online). • Hewlett B.S. & Amola R.P. 2003. Cultural Contexts of Ebola in Northern Uganda. In: Emerging Infectious Diseases, 9(10), pp. 1242-­‐1248. • Lynteris C. 2016. The Epidemiologist as Culture Hero: Visualizing Humanity in the Age of “the Next Pandemic”. In: Visual Anthropology, 29(1), pp. 36-­‐53 • Wilkinson A. & Leach, M. 2015. Briefing: Ebola–myths, realities, and structural violence. In: African Affairs, 114(454), pp. 136-­‐148. QUESTIONS FOR SECTION 3 4. Urban anthropology should be more than a study of people in the city. Discuss. •
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Low, S. 1996. The anthropology of cities: imagining and theorizing the city. Annual Review of Anthropology 25: 383-­‐409. Hannerz, U. 1980. Exploring the City: inquiries toward an urban anthropology. New York: Columbia [chps 3] Reed, A. 2002. City of details: interpreting the personality of London. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 8: 127-­‐141. Borneman J. 1992. Belonging in the Two Berlins: kin, state and nation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press [chp 1]. Eade, J. 2000. Placing London: from imperial city to global city. Oxford: Berghahn. [Introduction] But also, be sure to cover other readings in relevant sections of course; especially readings set for tutorial. 41 5. How do cities exercise control? •
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Holston J. 1989. The Modernist City: an anthropological critique of Brasíla. Chicago: Chicago University Press [chp 1]. Mitchell T. 1988. Colonizing Egypt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press [chp3]. Rama A. 1996. The Lettered City. Durham: Duke University Press [chp 1]. Auge M. 2002. In the Metro. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press [chp1]. A book review will assess weeks 9 and 10. Students are required to submit a review of 1000 words, of either Harris, C. (2012) The Museum on the Roof of the World: art, politics and the representation of Tibet. University of Chicago Press or Malkki, L. (1995) Purity and Exile: violence, memory, and national cosmology among Hutu refugees in Tanzania. University of Chicago Press. Both books are available electronically through the library. 42 HINTS ON WRITING ESSAYS Please note the following key points: Essays should be typed and submitted via MMS (https://www.st-­‐andrews.ac.uk/mms/) Essays should be properly referenced, especially direct quotations from books and articles, and a bibliography should be attached. The bibliography should only contain items that have been specifically referred to in the text. We strongly recommend that you follow the system explained in the last section of this handbook. Consult your lecturer/tutor/supervisor if in doubt. ESSAY WRITING 1, Writing an essay or report is an exercise in the handling of ideas. It is not the mere transcription of long and irrelevant passages from textbooks. To gain a pass mark, an essay or report must show evidence of hard thinking (ideally, original thinking) on the student's part. 2. When a lecturer sets you an essay or report he or she is explicitly or implicitly asking you a question. Above all else your aim should be to discern what that question is and to answer it. You should give it a cursory answer in the first paragraph (introduction), thus sketching your plan of attack. Then in the body of the essay or report you should give it a detailed answer, disposing in turn of all the points that it has raised. And at the end (conclusion) you should give it another answer, i.e. a summary of your detailed answer. Note If the question has more than one part you should dedicate equal attention to each one. 3. An essay or report must be based on a sound knowledge of the subject it deals with. This means that you must read. If you are tempted to answer any question off the top of your head, or entirely from your own personal experience or general knowledge, you are asking for trouble. 4. Make brief notes as you read, and record the page references. Don't waste time by copying out long quotations. Go for the ideas and arrange these on paper. Some people find that arranging ideas in diagrams and tables makes them easier to remember and use than verbal passages. You will find it easier to do this if you keep certain questions in mind: What is the author driving at? What is the argument? Does it apply only to a particular society, or are generalised propositions being made? How well do the examples used fit the argument? Where are the weaknesses? Also think about the wider implications of an argument. Copy the actual words only if they say something much more aptly than you could say yourself. It is a good plan to write notes on the content of your reading in blue and your own comments on them in red. There is another aspect of your reading which should go hand in hand with the assessment of any one item: you should compare what you have read in different books and articles. Test what one author proposed against evidence from other societies: what do the different approaches lend to one another? In this way you should begin to see the value (and the problems) of comparison and learn that writers disagree and write contradictory things, and that all printed matter is not indisputable just because it lies between hard covers. Note that as well as showing evidence of reading of set texts, good answers link the essay topic back to material given in lectures or tutorials. You can also gain marks by including additional reading, providing it is clear from your essay that you have actually read it! 5. Don't then sit down and write the essay or report. Plan it first. Give it a beginning, a middle, and an ending. Much of the information you will have collected will have to be rejected because it isn't relevant. Don't be tempted to include anything that hasn't a direct bearing on the problem expressed in the title of the essay or report. Note that in the introductory paragraph it is a good idea to make it absolutely clear to the reader exactly what you understand by certain crucial concepts you will be discussing in the essay -­‐these concepts will probably be those which appear in the essay title. Define these concepts if you think there may be any ambiguity about them. Note also that when you give examples to illustrate a point be careful not to lose track of the argument. Examples are intended to illustrate a general (usually more abstract) point; they are not a substitute for making this point. 6. When you finally start on the essay or report, please remember these points: (a) Leave wide margins and a space at the end for comments. Any work that is illegible, obviously too long or too short, or lacking margins and a space at the end will be returned for re-­‐writing. Essays should be typed, preferably on one side of the paper and double-­‐spaced. (b) Append a bibliography giving details of the material you have read and cited in the essay. Arrange it alphabetically by author and by dates of publication. Look at the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute as an example of the style of presenting a bibliography. N.B. In the body of the essay or report, whenever you have occasion to support a statement by reference to a book or article, give in brackets the name of the author and date. To acknowledge a quotation or a particular observation, the exact page number should be added. For example, 'Shortly after the publication of The Andaman Islanders, Radcliffe-­‐Brown drew attention to the importance of the mother's brother (Radcliffe-­‐Brown 1924). What kindled his interest in the South African material was the pseudo-­‐historical interpretation of Henri Junod (Radcliffe-­‐Brown 1952: 15) ...........' If you are not sure how to do this, look in the journal Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute or some monograph in the library to get an idea of how this is done. Alternatively, footnote your references. Note that if you simply copy a writer's words into your essay without acknowledgement you will lose marks, and could even receive a zero mark. 7. Footnotes should be placed either at the foot of each page, or all together at the end. If on each page, they should be numbered consecutively from the beginning of each chapter, e.g. 1-­‐
22. If placed all together at the end, they should be numbered consecutively throughout the whole research project, e.g. 1-­‐103, in which case do not start renumbering for each chapter. 8. Footnote references in the text should be clearly designated by means of superior figures, placed after punctuation, e.g. ................the exhibition. 10 9. Underlining (or italics) should include titles of books and periodical publications, and technical terms or phrases not in the language of the essay, (e.g. urigubu, gimwali). 10. Italicize: ibid., idem., op.cit., loc.cit., and passim. 44 11. Single inverted commas should be placed at the beginning and end of quotations, with double inverted commas for quotes-­‐within-­‐quotes. 12. If quotations are longer than six typed lines they should be indented, in which case inverted commas are not needed. 13. PLEASE TRY TO AVOID GENDER-­‐SPECIFIC LANGUAGE. Don't write he/him when you could be referring to a woman! You can avoid this problem by using plurals (they/them). Referencing: Correct referencing is a critical aspect of all essays. It is the primary skill that you are expected to learn and it also guards you against the dangers of plagiarism. Make sure that when you are reading texts that you note down accurately the source of information by recording the name of the author, the book title, page number and so forth. This will enable you to reference correctly when it comes to writing your essay. Adequate referencing requires you to indicate in the appropriate places in body of your essay the source of any information you may use. Such references vary in kind, but a general guide to the correct format would be: A general reference: … as Turnbull’s (1983) work demonstrates … … the romanticisation of Pygmies has been commonplace in anthropology (e.g. Turnbull 1983) … Note: In this example, the author is referring to Turnbull’s work in a general way. If the author was referring to specific ideas or details made by Turnbull, then the page number needs to be specified. A paraphrase: … Turnbull describes how the Ituri Forest had remained relatively untouched by colonialism (Turnbull 198 3: 24) … Note: This is more specific than a general reference as it refers to a particular point or passage by an author. It is your summary of a point made by someone else (in this case Turnbull). When paraphrasing, you must always include the page number in your reference. A quotation: … under these circumstances, “the Mbuti could always escape to the forest” (Turnbull 1983: 85). Note: All quotes from anyone else’s work must be acknowledged and be placed within speech marks. The page number or numbers must be referenced. If you need to alter any of the words within the quote to clarify your meaning, the words changed or added should be placed in square brackets [thus] to indicate that they are not those of the original author. Bibliography: All tests referenced within the body of your essay must be included within the bibliography. Entries in the bibliography should be organised in alphabetical order and should contain full publication details. Consult an anthropological journal, such as the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (JRAI), to see how the correct format should appear. This is available both electronically and in hard copy. The standard format of bibliographic referencing is as follows: Book: Turnbull, C.M. 1983. The Mbuti Pygmies: Change and Adaptation. New York, Holt Reinhart and Wilson. Edited Collection: 45 Leacock, E. & R. Lee (eds) 1982. Politics and History in Band Societies. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press. Chapter in edited collection: Woodburn. J.C. (1980). Hunters and gatherers today and reconstruction of the past. In Soviet and western anthropology (ed.) E. Gellner. London: Duckworth. Journal article: Ballard, C. 2006. Strange alliance: Pygmies in the colonial imaginary. World Archaeology,38, 1, 133 151. Web pages: It is unadvisable to use web sites unless directed to them by a lecturer. There is a great deal of rubbish on the Internet. However, if you do, it is important that you provide full details of the web-­‐page address as well as the date on which the page was accessed. Miller, J.J. 2000, Accessed 22/09/2006. The Fierce People: The wages of anthropological incorrectness. Article available electronically at: http://www.nationalreview.com/20nov00/miller112000.shtml. If you are not sure how to do this, look in the journal JRAI or some monograph in the library to get an idea of how this is done. Alternatively, footnote your references. Note that if you simply copy a writer's words into your essay without acknowledgement you run the risk of plagiarism and will lose marks, and may even receive a zero mark. 8. Please also note the following: (a) Spellings, grammar, writing style. Failure to attend to these creates a poor impression. Note, especially: society, argument, bureaucracy. (b) Foreign words: Underline (or italicize) these, unless they have passed into regular English. (c) PLEASE TRY TO AVOID GENDER-­‐SPECIFIC LANGUAGE. Don't write he/him when you could be referring to a woman! You can avoid this problem by using plurals (they/them). ______________________________ 46