This one-year programme combines a thorough grounding in the history, theory and methodology of Social Anthropology with a detailed examination of the culture, society and anthropology of South Asia. It is aimed both at students who are new to anthropology and those with an existing anthropology background who wish to consolidate their knowledge of the discipline as a whole, and combine it with a particular interest in South Asia.
Students Take:
AUTUMN TERM:
Anthropology and Ethnography
This course introduces students to contemporary anthropology through close reading of recent and classic ethnographic texts. Texts are chosen to exemplify particular theoretical strands within contemporary anthropology and may include works that cover questions of culture and ethnicity, modernity and development, colonialism and post-colonialism, personhood and identity, rights, social movements, gender and religion. The central questions will be: (1) What kinds of theoretical assumptions lie behind each text? (2) How were the data that the text is based on gathered, analysed and written up? By the end of the course, students will have a clear idea of the preoccupations of contemporary anthropology and how ethnographic texts are constructed.
- Assessed by 2 x Book Review of 2,000 words each
Understanding Processes of Social Change
This course provides a general theoretical background to the ways in which different disciplines in the social sciences have thought about social change and development. The course will use empirical material as well as more theoretical texts, and will be taught through lectures as well as seminars. The course aims not only to highlight contemporary issues but also to provide an introduction to anthropological debates and perspectives.
- Assessed by 5,000 word Term Paper
SPRING TERM:
Society and Economy in South Asia
This course introduces students to the anthropology of South Asia. It critically explores anthropological debates about caste, power, and hierarchy, and introduces studies of kinship and family in South Asia. The course examines the bases of power and their recent transformations in the post-colonial period. It looks at the interconnections of social, economic and political forms and at how contemporary social and political relations are shaped by wider concerns of communalism, popular politics, religion and its politicization, industrialisation and urbanisation. Various analytical approaches are critically assessed from an ethnographic perspective.
- Assessed by 5,000 word Term Paper
Option in Anthropology
One option from:
- Society and Economy in South Asia
- European Transformations
- Knowledge, Power and Resistance
- Households and Livelihoods
- Embodiment and Institutionalisation of Violence
- Anthropology of Childbirth and Reproductive Health
- Cultural Understandings of Health and Healing
- Human Rights, Identity and Social Movements
- Transnational Migration and Diaspora
It is also possible to take options from outside this range, that are offered on related MA Programmes, subject to the agreement of the programme convenor.
SUMMER TERM:
Dissertation
Students conduct independent, supervised research for a dissertation on a topic of their choice relating to South Asia.
- Assessed by 20,000 word Dissertation
Faculty interests in the Anthropology of South Asia
Katy Gardner BA (Cambridge) PhD (LSE)
Bangladesh; Islam; migration; diaspora; development
Geert De Neve MSc PhD (LSE)
India; Tamilnadu; labour; power; gender; industrialisation and modernity; globalisation
Filippo Osella BSc PhD (LSE)
India; social reproduction and stratification; agrarian relations; popular religion; migration; masculinity
R. L. (Jock) Stirrat MA PhD (Cambridge)
Sri Lanka; aid and development; economic anthropology; Asian religions; Catholicism; fundamentalism
Maya Unnithan MA (Delhi) PhD (Cambridge)
India, Rajasthan; kinship, family and gender relations; economic anthropology; popular religion; reproductive health
Publications by Sussex Faculty involved with the Programme
De Neve, G. 2005. The Everyday Politics of Labour: Working Lives in India's Informal Economy. New Delhi: Social Science Press.
Gardner, K. 1995. Global Migrants, Local Lives: Travel and Transformation in Rural Bangladesh. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Osella, F and C. Osella. 2000. Social Mobility in Kerala: Modernity and Identity in Conflict. London: Pluto Press.
Unnithan, Maya. 1997. Identity, Gender and Poverty: New Perspectives on Caste and Tribe in Rajasthan. Berghahn Books.
Damodaran, V. and M. Unnithan (eds.). 2000. Postcolonial India: history, politics and culture. New Delhi: Manohar Press.
For further information, please contact Dr Nigel Eltringham: N.P.Eltringham@sussex.ac.uk