Anthropology

Cultures of North Africa, Southwest Asia and Central Asia

Module code: 003AE
Level 5
15 credits in spring semester
Teaching method: Workshop
Assessment modes: Coursework, Essay

You will explore diversity, complexity, and dynamism of social life in the Middle East and Central Asia. You’ll discuss a range of social forms and identities produced, consumed, contested and documented by and about the people living in this region. You’ll look at general theories about the Middle East and Central Asia combined with ethnographic studies based on specific localities and communities.

You’ll be introduced to the study of the Middle East and Central Asia through key debates in the anthropology of this vast and complex region. You’ll use material on countries such as Syria, Jordan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Turkey. You’ll also explore literature that deals with the lives and experiences of people, migrants, and communities from the region in Europe, South America and Asia.

In particular you’ll examine contributions that ethnographies of these contexts have made to wider debates in anthropology and the social sciences, including contentious matters such as:

• the politics of knowledge
• the legacy that national boundaries, drawn up by colonial powers, have had on the everyday lives of borderland communities
• the status of the tribe both as an empirical social relaity and an instrument for the exercise of state power.

Module learning outcomes

• To demonstrate an awareness in key themes in the anthropology of the Middle East and Central Asia
• To anchor such themes in wider theoretical debates and discussions within anthropology
• To apply a critical ethnographic perspective to political, cultural, social, and economic issues in the Middle East and Central Asia
• To apply analytical frameworks concerning culture and political economy to historical and ethnographic accounts of the region