ANTHROPOLOGY

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr. A King

Pre-requisites

Co-requisites

Overview

Anthropology is the comparative study of human ways of life. In this course we introduce some of the key topics of contemporary anthropological inquiry. What do people in different societies consider a ‘person’ to be, how do they define their kin, and what count as ‘social relations’? How does culture affect the ways we think about sex and gender? How are people linked together in systems of gift-giving and exchange? How do people shape their lives in the course of consuming material things? How has colonialism affected social relations between peoples and structured notions of racial difference? How have the politics and policies of development affected third-world and indigenous peoples?

Structure

1 one-hour lecture
1 additional guest lectures/alternative pedagogic methods/other exercises every other week
1 one-hour tutorial per week

Assessment

One two-hour written examination (60%), in-course assessment (40%): two essays.


One two-hour written examination.

Formative Assessment

Tutorial presentations and discussions.

Feedback

Written feedback on in course assessments (normally within two weeks of submission). Oral feedback on presentations.

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr A Arnason

Pre-requisites

None

Co-requisites

Overview

The course will provide an extended introduction to the discipline of social anthropology focussing on how anthropologists understand cultural difference. Topics covered include theories of culture and difference, perception and culture, language and culture, interpretation, time and history, and understanding violence and witchcraft. Lectures and Tutorials will encourage students to relate anthropological ideas and perspectives to a broad range of social and cultural issues. Taking the course will develop students’ listening, comprehension and note taking, other study skills including critical reading and review of written materials, their abilities to express their ideas in speech and writing and their powers of critical thinking.

Structure

1 one-hour lecture, 1 additional guest lectures/alternative pedagogic methods/other exercises every other week, 1 one-hour tutorial per week.

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 two-hour written examination (60%), in-course assessment (40%): one book review, one essay.

Resit: 1 two-hour written examination.

Formative Assessment

Tutorial presentations, tutorial discussions.

Feedback

Written feedback on in course assessments (normally within two weeks of submission). Oral feedback on presentations.

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr J Rasanayagam & Dr M Mills

Pre-requisites

Students taking honours level courses in anthropology need to have completed either AT 1002 or AT 1501.

Overview

An introduction to how anthropologists have studied religious and political phenomena at both small and large scales. Through an ethnographically-grounded examination of key theories and theorists, the course will seek to answer larger questions about human cultural life. What does it mean to believe in, or be loyal to, a religion or political cause? How should we understand religious violence? Is religion central to human social life, or is it irrelevant in the modern world? Can we easily separate religion and politics across the globe? Does the institutionalisation of religion necessarily mean its politicisation? How does the study of religion help us to understand belief, emotion and experience?

Structure

2 one hour lectures (Tues. 12.00-13.00, Wed. 12.00-13.00) and 1 one hour tutorial per week

Assessment

1st attempt: 1 two hour written examination (60%); continuous assessment (40%)

Resit: 1 two hour written examination (100%)

Formative Assessment

Feedback

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr N Wachowich, Dr A Brown, Dr R Wishart

Pre-requisites

Either AT1002 or AT1501

Overview

This course will explore the synergy between anthropology and history as situated in a colonial world order. It will be split into four main themes: Intellectual Histories; Environmental Histories; Material Histories; and Mediated Histories. Within these themes we will address topics such as: cross-cultural contact and colonialism, evolutional theory in anthropology and notions of the ‘other’, historical visions of personhood, ‘capturing’ cultures in museums, kinship and politics, gendered colonialism, economic development, media, environmental histories, ethnohistory, aboriginal rights and contemporary resistance movements.

Structure

2 weekly lectures (1 hour) and 1 weekly tutorial (1 hour).

Assessment

1st attempt: In-course assessment will consist of two essays (1500 words each) worth 20% each. The final exam will be worth 60%.

100% Exam

Formative Assessment

Feedback

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr A Arnason

Pre-requisites

AT 3018 or by permission of the Head of Department.

Notes

This course will run in the first half-session of 2010/11 as AT 3004.

Overview

This course explores the development and contemporary significance of theoretical debates surrounding culture and social life. The course will examine the work of major figures in anthropology both past and present and ask questions such as: What is culture? What is society, social life and sociality? How can anthropologists understand historical change? What is kinship in an age of new reproductive technologies? What is it to be human in an age of genetic modifications? How are culture and society linked to issues of embodiment and emotion, technoscience and power?

While the aim is to give students an understanding of the development of theoretical thinking in anthropology, the course will be organised thematically rather than chronologically.

Structure

2 one-hour lectures and 1 one-hour tutorial per week.

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 three-hour examination (60%) and in-course assessment (40%).

Resit: In-course grades will be carried forward unless the student opts to resubmit course work.

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr J Vergunst

Pre-requisites

AT 2003 and AT 2508 or by permission of the Head of Department.

Notes

This course will normally be available only to single honours or designated degree students in Anthropology.

Overview

This course provides an introduction to the formulation of anthropological research questions and research design, discusses anthropological practice in the context of current issues in the philosophy of social science and language, deals with key questions surrounding fieldwork and participant observation, reviews a range of auxillary study methods and practical techniques of data collection (including audio-recording and ethnographic film) and examines some of the gender implications and political and ethical issues raised by anthropological research.

Structure

2 one-hour lectures and 1 one-hour tutorial per week.

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 three-hour examination (40%), research proposal (10%), research programme (30%) and essay (20%).

Resit: In-course grades will be carried forward unless the student opts to resubmit course work.

Formative Assessment

Feedback

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr R Wishart

Pre-requisites

AT 2003 and AT 2508 or by permission of the Head of Department.

Notes

This course will run in the second semester of 2010/11 as AT 3518. It is also coded as AT 3018.

Overview

This course examines how the guiding ideas of Western thought and science have emerged historically out of European encounters with the indigenous inhabitants of other lands, and how these ideas have, in turn, influenced contemporary anthropological understandings of ‘other cultures’. We will focus, in particular, on ways of describing and analysing the relations between people and their environment, and between human beings and non-human animals. Through a review of the ways in which the concept of society has been set against that of nature in the work of several prominent anthropologists, the course will lay the foundations for subsequent study of the history of anthropological thought, while also introducing students to basic techniques of genealogical inquiry, library research and ethnographical writing.

Structure

1 two-hour lecture and 1 one-hour tutorial per week.

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 three-hour examination (60%) and in-course assessment: two essays (40%).

Resit: In-course grades will be carried forward unless the student opts to resubmit course work.

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr J Vergunst

Pre-requisites

Permission from the Anthropology Department.

Notes

This course aims to provide methods training to students who are not anthropology honours students. AT honours students are expected to take AT 3006.

Overview

This is a 6 week intensive course introducing junior honours students without a previous background to anthropology to the skills and techniques of anthropological research. While anthropologists have studied the full diversity of human culture around the world, this course focuses on how anthropology can contribute to understanding a number of urban or European settings such as illness, health and healing, classroom experience, teaching and learning, or outreach work within government ministries. The course begins with an overview of the study of society and culture in anthropology. We then explore further the cultural understanding of personhood, agency and the body, and relate these issues to the qualitative and ethnographic methods of anthropology. A special session will examine participatory action research. A series of workshops designed to give students experience of the methods used by anthropologists will be held in the course. They will cover the key skills of participant observation, interviewing, recording and analysing qualitative data, and ethics of research. Assessment will be by way of one research project, split into a research proposal and a final report.

Structure

2 two-hour lectures and 2 one-hour tutorials (to be arranged) per week.

Assessment

1st Attempt: Continuous assessment (100%).

Resit: 1 two-hour written examination (100%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr A Arnason and Dr J Vergunst

Pre-requisites

AT 2003 and AT 2508 or by permission of the Head of Department.

Notes

This course will normally be available only to single honours or designated degree students in Anthropology.

Overview

This course provides an introduction to the formulation of anthropological research questions and research design, discusses anthropological practice in the context of current issues in the philosophy of social science and language, deals with key questions surrounding fieldwork and participant observation, reviews a range of auxiliary study methods and practical techniques of data collection (including audio-recording and ethnographic film) and examines some of the gender implications and political and ethical issues raised by anthropological research.

Structure

2 one-hour lectures and 1 one-hour tutorial per week.

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 two-hour examination (40%), research proposal (10%), research assignment (30%) and essay (20%).

Resit: In-course grades will be carried forward unless the student opts to resubmit course work.

Formative Assessment

Feedback

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr M Bolton

Pre-requisites

AT 3006 or by permission of the Head of Department.

Notes

This course will only be available to Single Honours students in Anthropology. Junior honours students must pass this course to proceed to Senior honours.

Overview

Under close supervision of a member of staff, students develop a research project involving the collection and analysis of original material. In this part of the project, students clarify the problem to be addressed, placing it in its wider comparative and theoretical context. They review the literature relevant to the project and consider the approach and techniques to be adopted in carrying it out.

Structure

A number of ad hoc workshops.

Assessment

1st Attempt: In-course assessment (100%).

Resit: In-course grades will be carried forward unless the student opts to resubmit course work.

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr M Bolton

Pre-requisites

AT 3517 or by permission of the Head of Department.

Notes

This course will normally only be available to Single Honours students in Anthropology and is a core element of the honours programme.

Overview

In this part of the project, students analyse the material collected and, under the guidance of a member of staff, write the final report. The techniques of analysis vary with the nature of the research problem; however all students are guided in the arts of critical analysis, report planning and report writing. As in Part 1, particular emphasis is placed on helping students develop their own skills.

Structure

1 tutorial per fortnight.

Assessment

1st Attempt: In-course assessment (100%).

Resit: In-course assessment (100%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr T Argounova-Low

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 4.

Notes

This course will be available as AT 4009 in first half-session of 2010/11.

Overview

This course examines the cultures of the circumpolar Arctic and sub-Arctic, and the history of their ethnographic study, by reference to various metaphors that have been used to unite diverse areas of the circumpolar region. The central themes include ideas of the person, models of ecology, distinctive ideas of social power, ritual specialisation ('shamanism'), and national identity. The study of circumpolar ethnography is also put into the context of the history of colonisation on the following imperial frontiers: Siberia, Scandinavia, Greenland, the Canadian Eastern Arctic, the Canadian Sub-Arctic, and Alaska.

Structure

1 one-hour lecture and 1 one-hour seminar per week.

Assessment

1st Attempt: Examination (60%) and in-course assessment (40%).

Resit: In-course grades will be carried forward unless the student opts to resubmit course work.

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr N Wachowich

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 4.

Notes

This course will not be available in 2010/11.

Overview

This course critically examines representations of indigenous peoples as they occur through such media as: ethnographic films, museums, art, photography and the internet. It addresses the history and politics of colonial representations as well as the contemporary, politicised efforts of indigenous peoples to gain control over their own cultural productions. Students critically analyse anthropological issues related to visual anthropology, performance theory, ethnographic film and museum studies. They explore how visual representations of indigenous cultures emerge in particular contexts and political economics. Questions raised in the course relate to social theory, to anthropological knowledge construction, to ethical and political concerns raised by cross-cultural representation, and to the role that visual media play in facilitating, mediating, but also complicating intercultural encounters.

Structure

1 one-hour lecture and 2 hour lab per week.

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 three-hour examination (60%) and in-course assessment (40%).

Resit: In-course grades will be carried forward unless the student opts to resubmit course work.

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr J Vergunst and Professor T Ingold

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 4.

Notes

This course will be available in 2010/11 in the second half-session as AT 4511.

Overview

This course explores the connections between anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture, conceived as alternative approaches to understanding and shaping how people perceive and relate to their surroundings, in currents of space, time and movement. It focuses on: issues of perception, design and construction; the generation and reproduction of form in natural and 'built' environments; the relation between bodily movements and lived time/space; the significance of craft and skill; activities of depiction and description, and impacts of old and new technologies. The course explores these issues through readings, practical exercises and site visits.

Structure

1 one-hour lecture and 1 one-hour seminar per week.

Assessment

1st Attempt: Examination (60%) and in-course assessment (40%).

Resit: In-course grades will be carried forward unless the student opts to resubmit course work.

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr N Curtis

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 4.

Notes

This course will be available in the second half-session of 2010/11 as AT 4512.

Overview

This course examines material culture and anthropological perspectives. It explores the role of collectors and museums in the cultural history of Europe and their place in contemporary societies. Central to the course will be an examination of the meanings attributed to objects; aspects of curiosity, obsession and the ‘fetish’; the representation of ‘others’ in museums; colonialism and cultural encounters; systems of classification; the question of ‘authenticity’ and the ‘heritage industry’; the relationships between museums and European visual culture. Issues of museum conservation, documentation and display will also be addressed.

Structure

1 one-hour lecture and 1 one-hour seminar per week.

Assessment

1st Attempt: In-course assessment (100%).

Resit: In-course grades will be carried forward unless the student opts to resubmit course work.

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr A King

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 4.

Notes

This course will not be available in 2010/11.

Overview

People speaking are implicit in nearly every anthropological endeavour. Linguistic anthropology examines the articulation of language and culture. It focuses on cultural and social implications of language use as well as the linguistic factors involved in action and behaviour. Course topics covered include language change and its social consequences, power and authority in language, gender issues in speech, creativity and performance, oral narratives, psycholinguistics and the linguistic relativity principle, and discourse. The course is structured on a seminar format, where students and teacher collectively explore key texts each week.

Structure

1 one-hour lecture and 1 one-hour seminar per week.

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 three-hour examination (60%) and in-course assessment: essays (40%).

Resit: In-course grades will be carried forward unless the student opts to resubmit course work.

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr A Arnason

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 4.

Notes

This course will not be available in 2010/11.

Overview

Continuing on from themes covered in AT 3501, Anthropological Theory 1, this course explores theoretical issues and debates on the cutting edge of contemporary anthropology. It begins with a review of how the key concepts of culture and society were rethought, particularly in the 1980s. Following from this, we ask: how can anthropology proceed if the targets of its investigation can no longer to be understood as objective entities? To find possible answers, the course examines current anthropological interests in power and history, political economy and phenomenology, experience, embodiment and practice. While the intent is theoretical these issues and debates will be explored through ethnographic writing on such subjects as emotions and the body, personhood and politics, death, memory and forgetting, landscape and identity.

Structure

1 one-hour lecture and 1 one-hour seminar per week.

Assessment

1st Attempt: Examination (60%) and in-course assessment (40%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Professor D Anderson

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 4.

Notes

This course will not be available in 2010/11.

Overview

This course examines the concept of aboriginal rights as understood and practised in places colonised by the British, the Russians and the Spanish. Examples are drawn from Australia, New Zealand, Russia, Brazil and Peru. In seminars and written work, students are asked to draw comparisons between these regions. Through examining concrete political struggles, the seminar focuses upon symbolic and cross-cultural understandings of legal ideas within various colonial situations. This comparative approach leads to a critical understanding of fourth world politics, human rights, land tenure, symbolic resistance, religious syncretism and national identity.

Structure

1 one-hour lecture and 1 one-hour seminar per week.

Assessment

1st Attempt: Examination (60%) and in-course assessment (40%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr A Whitehouse

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 4.

Notes

This course will run in the second half-session of 2010/11 as AT 4516.

Overview

The course creatively explores the tensions and overlaps between landscape as physical landform, as scenery, and as the site of human activities and journeys. Developing advanced themes in environmental anthropology, we discuss the central place of landscape in ethnography. Topics covered include walking, the creation of routes, landscape and the body politic, and heritage landscapes. The basis of the course will be historical perspectives (from archaeology, geography and history of are as well as anthropology) and recent ethnographies of landscape.

Structure

1 one-hour lecture and 1 one-hour tutorial per week, to be arranged.

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 three-hour examination (60%) and in-course assessment (40%).

Resit: In-course grades will be carried forward unless the student opts to resubmit course work.

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr M J Rasanayagam

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 4.

Notes

This course will run in the second half-session of 2010/11 as AT 4517.

Overview

This course examines how Muslims engage with Islam as a system of morality and belief. It discusses the debates within Muslim societies about what constitutes 'real' Islam and how Muslims should conduct themselves. How does belief in Islam as a unitary, transcendent Truth, which is universal to all humanity, relate to the diverse manner in which Islam is actually lived in practice throughout the world? An important issue which will be explored in the course is that of subjectivity and selfhood within a Muslim context, and how we might approach the topic of belief itself.

Structure

1 one-hour lecture and 1 one hour tutorial per week.

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 three-hour examination (60%); continuous assessment (40%).

Resit: In-course grades will be carried forward unless the student opts to resubmit course work.

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr R Wishart

Pre-requisites

Only available to senior joint honours students in anthropology.

Overview

Students will decide on a topic of study with their allocated supervisor and carry out readings and research around that topic under the guidance of their supervisor. On the basis of this research students have to write a substantial essay on which their assessment is based.

Structure

The course will be based on one-to-one supervision meetings between students and staff assigned to supervise their indepdendent study.

Assessment

1st Attempt: Continuous assessment (essay of 10,000 words) (100%).

Resit: In-course grades will be carried forward unless the student opts to resubmit course work.

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr A Brown

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 4.

Notes

This course will be offered in first half-session in 2010/11 as AT 4019.

Overview

The interplay between cultural representation, the construction of identity and their influence on contemporary social relationships have long been of interest to anthropologists and cultural historians. The Native peoples of the Plains region of North America have arguably been subjected to more cultural stereotyping than any other aboriginal group; popular representations include warriors and princesses, the 'stoic Indian', and the 'ecological Indian'. Through a study of contemporary issues affecting their daily lives, the lectures and seminars will consider how the tensions created by such imaginaries are negotiated by Native peoples on the Plains today as well as how they feed into broader anthrpological concerns relating to the politics of presentation. Themes to be covered include the impact of stereotypes; sovereignty; the negotiation of self and other; the social and political implications of defining 'Indianness'; new economic developments and cultural tourism.

Structure

1 one-hour lecture and 1 one-hour tutorial per week, to be arranged.

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 three-hour examination (60%) and in-course assessment (40%).

Resit: In-course grades will be carried forward unless the student opts to resubmit course work.

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr J Leach

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 4.

Notes

This course will be available in the first half-session of 2010/11 as AT 4020.

Overview

This course will explore some of the history, meanings, and uses of 'Intellectual Property', a concept of increasing importance an anthropology and beyond. The series of lectures and seminars will provide students with theoretical tools to approach contemporary issues of innovation, owenership, and the value placed upon knowledge. We ask, 'How is knowledge produced?; What are the connections people make between it and other items that can be owned?; How do precendents from one realm of production and ownership appear relevant in another?' The lectures will cover literature from Classical Political Economy, Political Philosophy, Economic Anthropology, and international precedents for attributing authorship and cultural rights to persons and groups. Part of the course will be dedicated to literature within Science and Technology Studies, and studies of Biodiversity, and Genetics, and of software production. The underlying theme is to expose some of the consequences of liberal individualism for the structure and politics of contemporary social realities.

Structure

1 one-hour lecture and 1 one-hour tutorial per week, to be arranged.

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 three-hour written examination (60%); continuous assessment (40%).

Resit: In-course grades will be carried forward unless the student opts to resubmit course work.

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr A D King / Dr N Wachowich

Pre-requisites

This course will be available only to students in Programme Year 4 or by permission of the course coordinator.

Notes

This course will not run in 2010/11.

Overview

From charter myths and epics to reminiscences and eyewitness accounts, stories are an integral part of talk and the sociality of everyday life. Oral traditions have a social life situated in the nexus of relationships among persons. The anthropology of oral traditions focuses on historical oral narratives and the interplay between orality and textuality in contemporary social life. Analysis proceeds from the assumption that form and content are intertwined in the production of meaning and that an attention to performance and medium is important to understanding the message. This course will be of interest to anthropology students, as well as to students in linguistics and history.

Structure

Two 90-minute seminars per week.

Assessment

1st attempt: 1 essay (20%), 1 project (40%) and 1 three-hour exam (40%).

Resit (for Honours students only): Candidates achieving a CAS mark of 6-8 may be awarded compensatory level 1 credit. Candidates achieving a CAS mark of less than 6 will be required to submit themselves for re-assessment and should contact the Course Co-ordinator for further details.

Resit: Examination (100%)

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr E Hallam

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 4

Notes

This course will not run in 2010/11.

Overview

This course focuses upon anthropological and historical studies of carnival. It explores the experience and interpretation of carnival and the carnivalesque in different social and cultural contexts including Europe, Africa and South America. There are several central themes: festivity, cultural performance and display; the body and sexuality; disguise and identity; gender relations; power, resistance and subversion; order and disorder; ritual and symbolism; violence and abuse. The course draws upon a range of media including film, visual images and texts.

Structure

1 one-hour lecture and 1 one-hour seminar per week.

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 three-hour examination (60%) and essays (40%).

Resit (for Honours students only): Candidates achieving a CAS mark of 6-8 may be awarded compensatory level 1 credit. Candidates achieving a CAS mark of less than 6 will be required to submit themselves for re-assessment and should contact the Course Co-ordinator for further details.

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr M A Mills

Pre-requisites

Notes

Available only to students in Programme year 4. This course will not be available in 2010/11.

Overview

A cross-cultural examination of the role of cultural and religious factors in the development of political thought and practice, particularly in the formations of legitimate rule and governance. Material on small-scale interactions and practices developed in Levels 1 & 2 are built on to critically examine the form of state and statecraft, and the influence that state modes of attention have had on anthropology itself. The course is envisaged as following something like the following structure:
• Identifying ‘political groups’: puzzling our way through ‘race’, ‘tribe’, ‘ethnicity’ and ‘state’; the political construction of ‘culture’ and ‘religion’ as objects of anthropological attention.
• Anthropological theories of state development, colonialism, nationalism and the ‘pre-modern’ state, critically examined through the lens of comparative case-studies.
• Modalities of statecraft: ceremonial in political life; law, discipline and violence; the constitutional construction of history and memory.

Structure

2 two-hour seminars per week.

Assessment

1st attempt: 1 three-hour written examination (50%); Coursework (50%).

Formative Assessment

Feedback

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr T Argounova-Low

Pre-requisites

AT 3004 / AT 3504 Anthropological Theory

Notes

Available only to students in Programme Year 4. This course will not run in 2010/11.

Overview

This course explores the phenomenon of roads and focuses on the relationship between roads and other anthropological concepts, such as landscape, environment, narrative, knowledge and memory, gradually building up towards theoretical conceptualization of roads. The course will deal with the themes of mobility and migration, topical issues in contemporary world. The course will mainly rely on ethnographic material from the North, including Scotland.

Structure

1 one-hour lecture and 1 one-hour tutorial per week.

Assessment

1st attempt: 1 two-hour written examination (60%), continuous assessment (40%): including one 2,000 word essay (20%) and ten short written assignments based on required readings (20%).

Resit: 1 one-hour written examination (60%), in-course grades will be carried forward unless the student opts to resubmit course work.

Formative Assessment

Feedback

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr M Bolton

Pre-requisites

Notes

Available only to students in programme year 4. This course will not run in 2010/11.

Overview

The theoretical focus of this course is on technology and uses of materials and the way that these intersect with questions of political power. The course will cover symbolic and Marxist approaches to technological choices; theories of embodiment, skills and learning; theories of inscription; and approaches to technological change, innovation and expertise from science studies (e.g. through actor-network theory). The theoretical concerns are addressed by introducing the anthropology of the Andean region – with the rationale that approaches to working with materials in this region differed markedly from those of Europe until (and also beyond) the Spanish conquest of the 16th century. Different areas of technology and material culture are addressed through examining both historical material and contemporary ethnographic studies – from prehispanic metallurgy to contemporary agricultural development and the role of scientifically trained experts in bringing about changes in practices. Four main technological areas are addressed in the course: mining and metallurgy; fibres and Andean textuality; medicine and the body; and working the land.

Structure

1 hour lecture and 1 hour tutorial per week

Assessment

1st attempt: 1 three-hour written examination (60%); Continuous assessment (40%).

Formative Assessment

Feedback