Activism for Development and Social Justice

30 credits
Spring teaching, year 1

This module addresses the ways in which activists and activism have sought to engage in development and social justice. You will explore and evaluate different approaches to activism, grounding this in theories of social mobilization and citizenship, and will work through a series of practical examples to explore how activism has been used to address issues of development and social justice. In doing so you'll develop your knowledge of theories of social change and approaches to development and social justice, exploring how different kinds of activisms seek to bring about change.

The module explores the contributions that imaginative, insurgent, disruptive and chaotic forms of social action have to make to development, and covers a range of forms of collective action from the use of petitions and lobbying of representatives, to the use of the arts in "interrupting" everyday life to bring some of its elements into question, to mobilisation for protests and peaceful demonstrations, to non-violent direct action and info-activism.

Anthropology of Reconciliation and Reconstruction

30 credits
Spring teaching, year 1

In their ethnographies, anthropologies have studied 'intra-cultural' conflict resolution practices. As activists, they have contributed to the emergence of generic approaches to conflict resolution. They have, however, raised important questions regarding the acontextuality of generic practices and whether they can capture the complexity of local circumstances. The first part of the module will critically assess the relationship between local ('intra-cultural') and generic approaches to conflict resolution (as practiced by INGOs and other third-parties), asking whether the latter can be tempered with a sense of context-specificity. The module will also consider the sociology of mediation and peace negotiations and the power relations and dynamics involved.

The second part of the module will be concerned with the desire to 'reconstruct' society in the aftermath of violent conflict. 'truth acknowledging' exercises (such as Truth Commissions), issues of memory and ways in which a psychologised 'nation' can be 'healed' will be critically assessed. This will be contrasted with arguments in favour of 'retributive' exercises (such as international criminal tribunals and domestic trials).

We will study the following: introduction to module; conflict resolution in context; conflict resolution or conflict transformation? 'Culture' and mediation/negotiation; INGOs and conflict resolution; peace processes; memory and narrative; 'truth commissions'; international criminal tribunals; one-to-one term paper tutorials.

Anthropology and Ethnography

30 credits
Autumn teaching, year 1

This module introduces you to contemporary anthroology 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.

Some central preoccupations will include the kind of theoretical assumptions that lie behind each text; and how the data that the text is based on was gathered, analysed and written up. By the end of the course, you will have a clear idea of the preoccupations of contemporary anthropology and how ethnographic texts are constructed.

Anthropology of Childhood

30 credits
Spring teaching, year 1

Anthropologists have taken children's lives into account from the early stages of the discipline, as visible in the works of, for example, Mead and Malinowski. These accounts, however, were often based on adult's views on children. More recently, anthropological interest has shifted from these socially constructed and symbolic understandings of childhood to an engagement with children's own perspectives and practices (James and Prout 1990). These approaches assume the centrality of children as actors, rather than passive beings who are being acted on; children are seen as complete humans, rather than as deficient adults-to-be. This perspective has enabled a wealth of cross-cultural, ethnographic studies to emerge, describing ideas and practices surrounding children and childhood. These include key events of the lifecourse, such as birth and death, but also a focus on how children are shaped by, and actively shape, their social environments, such as families and peers, educational institutions and religious communities.

Key themes address children in the context of play and labour, childrens' bodies, spaces and mobilities, as well as their experiences of, and responses to violence. This module aims to give an overview of anthropological engagements with childhood, both historically and including its more recent methodological innovations. Broader theoretical discussions are complemented by in-depth ethnographic material from cultures and societies across the globe.

Overview:

Week 1 'Childhood' as a cross-cultural concept
Week 2 Anthropological Perspectives on Children
Week 3 Rites of Passage
Week 4 Education and Morality
Week 5 Childrens' Bodies and Spaces
Week 7 Labour and Play
Week 6 Childrens' Mobilities
Week 9 Children and Violence
Week 10 Individual Term Paper Tutorials.

Critical Debates in Environment and Development

30 credits
Spring teaching, year 1

Medical Anthropology: Cultural Understandings of Health and Healing

30 credits
Spring teaching, year 1

Medical knowledge, related practices and health-seeking are shaped by the social, political and cultural contexts in which they occur. This module draws upon theories, concepts, and approaches in medical anthropology to interrogate the concept of 'health' in its diverse formulations. The module considers how people integrate different types of medicine in their everyday lives. It examines 'health-seeking' in different medical traditions. 'The body' is used as an alternative framework for understanding medical pluralism, and the connections between experience, efficacy, and knowledge.

Embodiment and institutionalisation of violence, conflict & conciliation

30 credits
Spring teaching, year 1

In this module we explore links between violence and conflict in society and its inscription into the body, memory, and habit. We consider the establishment of such connections within social institutional orders, and within disorder, questioning the salience of such distinctions. Therefore, module readings will, in Nancy Scheper-Hughes' words, 'continually juxtapose the routine, the ordinary the symbolic and normative violence of everyday life ("terror as usual") against sudden eruptions of unexpected, extraordinary or "gratuitous" violence (as in genocide, state terror, dirty wars and civil wars).' We explore the dialectic between body and society, as mediated through violence but also pleasure: efforts by society and state to appropriate bodies such as through initiation ritual, military drilling, and everyday rituals of social ordering, the responses of embodied subjects ranging from 'thralldom' and accommodation to resistance, and issues they raise around gender, personhood, and agency. We examine the inscription of nation, race, ethnicity, class and gender into bodies and embodied practices. Finally, we reflect on a range of discussions and debates concerning the relations between body, language, violence, pain, and fear.

Fair Trade, Ethical Business & New Moral Economies

30 credits
Spring teaching, year 1

Where and under what conditions are our T-shirts produced? How does Fair Trade impact on the livelihoods of small farmers in the Global South? Is Corporate Social Responsibility just a marketing ploy? Has ethics become only a matter of personal consumption behaviour?

This module familiarises you with discourses and practices around ethics and engagement in the global economy. It covers some of the ways in which ethics in markets, trade and global production networks are phrased and expressed in the contemporary world, and explores what sorts of mobilisations have emerged in the light of new ethical concerns. You will explore the ways in which ethical issues within the sphere of the economy have long been articulated in terms of moral economy, philanthropic giving, and relationships of patronage and dependency.  The module goes on to discusses the contemporary shift towards global trade and production networks, and the ways in which this shift has produced new ethical concerns around economic behaviour.

These concerns are increasingly (and differentially) expressed in terms of CSR, fair trade and ethical consumption. They also give rise to a series of engagements in terms of CSR interventions, ethical trade initiatives, civil society activism and critical consumption practices. You will assesses each of these initiatives from both a theoretical and an ethnographic perspective. You will also critically consider the implications of such engagements in terms of power, equality and gender, and the ways in which they emerge from and reproduce complex global interdependencies.

Globalisation and Rural Change

30 credits
Spring teaching, year 1

Poverty, Marginality and Everyday Lives

30 credits
Spring teaching, year 1

This module examines the processes of impoverishment and marginalisation of children, youth and adults in development contexts. A principle focus in on what anthropology can tell us about processes of impoverishment and marginality in development contexts – a complex and highly contextual field. By considering detailed ethnographic accounts of peoples’ everyday lives, you will also interrogate how local preferences, priorities and values can be incorporated into development policy. Throughout the module you will explore these topics with reference to the development policies and practices that have been aimed at `the poor’, as well as the wider political economies of economic transformation in the contemporary world. Focussing upon local contexts, a central premise is that people’s everyday experiences of poverty and marginality have to be situated historically, as well as in terms of the micro-dynamics of economic, social and political relations.

Refugees and development

30 credits
Spring teaching, year 1

Research Methods and Professional Skills (Anth)

15 credits
Spring teaching, year 1

This module provides you with training in social science research methods (generic as well as specific to their dissertation research) as well as with a set of professional skills that prepare them for a professional career. The module is run as a series of half-day workshops from which you select 3 workshops to match their specific needs, depending on disciplinary orientation, previous training and experience, future employment plans and personal interests. The workshops will cover a wide range of topics. The social research methods workshops will include interviewing, ethnographic methods, participatory research techniques, and questionnaire design. The professional skills workshops will include, for example, stakeholder engagement, sustainable livelihoods analysis, environmental impact assessment, project planning, and private sector consulting. The professional skills will also help to prepare those students planning to take a work placement over summer. As part of the module, you will also receive a workshop on dissertation planning and design.

The Architecture of Aid

30 credits
Spring teaching, year 1

This course explores the structure and organisation of the aid industry. You will cover the colonial heritage of the aid industry; the Washington and Post-Washington consensuses and the nature of structural adjustment; the rise of the NGO sector; the nature of the project and post-project approaches to development; and relations between disaster relief and development.

Transnational migration and diaspora

30 credits
Spring teaching, year 1

Understanding Processes of Social Change

30 credits
Autumn teaching, year 1

This module introduces you to classical sociological theories informing mainstream anthropological analyses of social change. You will focus on theorisations of wider processes of modernisation and change from structural, political and economic perspectives. You will consider debates concerning the effects and consequences of modernisation processes on social, political and economic realms, such as the formation of nation states, state bureaucracy and civil society; the development of markets and commoditisation of economic, social and cultural relationships. You will also reflect on recent critical approaches to the study of modernity and change as represented by theoretical trends associated to feminist theory, postmodernism, postcolonial studies and contemporary social theory. Particular attention will be paid to issues of globalisation and transnationalism; colonial and postcolonial relationships; and discursive constitution of practices and representations of modernity.