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Joint Honours Dissertation in Anthropology (AT4047)
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30 Credit Points
This course is open to joint honours students in anthropology. Having chosen a topic for their study, students will be allocated a supervisor and carry out readings, research and writing under the guidance of their supervisor. Students will write a 10,000-word dissertation based on library research.
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Dissertation (IR4031)
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30 Credit Points
This course affords students the opportunity to apply their knowledge/research skills in the field of Politics & International Relations to an individual piece of research, focusing on a topic selected by the student and approved by the Dissertation supervisor. Over the course of the project, with guidance from a supervising member of staff, the student will conduct a literature review of relevant material, select appropriate research methods, gather data where necessary, analyse data, and write a final analysis in the form of the Dissertation. Particular emphasis will be given to helping students develop their own skills.
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Science, Technology & International Relations (IR4034)
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30 Credit Points
This course investigates the international relations of science and technology, focusing on both the causes and effects of technology in terms of domestic and global governance. It examines issues such as ‘big science’ projects, technology transfer, the regulation of technology, competition in technology, and state policies toward technology using examples such as the nuclear industry, biotechnology, the internet, and others.
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Extreme Right in Western Europe (PI4060)
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30 Credit Points
This course will provide an in-depth analysis of a European party family which is growing in electoral support as well as political influence. Individual countries and parties will be covered, as well as key concepts such as fascism, racism, xenophobia and populism. Students will also be familiarised with different theoretical approaches explaining the growth of extreme right parties, and responses from the political environment. The course will be beneficial to future study and work in a wide range of areas and contexts, and has relevance to social and political challenges such as integration, internationalisation, globalisation and social cohesion.
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International Political Psychology (PI4086)
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30 Credit Points
This course investigates issues at the intersection of psychology and international politics, studying both the psychological causes and consequences of international relations. In addition to familiarising students with core concepts and methods of international political psychology, it develops their skills in analysing factors such as personality, beliefs, perception, emotions, trust, empathy, status, reputation, and social identity.
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Peace, Conflict and Society (SO4070)
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30 Credit Points
This course utilises a range of disciplinary and theoretical approaches to analyse the concept of ‘transition’ as a fundamental condition of world history. It examines this through two related processes: the transition from peace to conflict and from conflict to peace at both a macro and micro level. Topics include how states transition through revolutionary violence or through peaceful means, how individuals are radicalized into terrorist groups or become involved in non-violent movements, and transitions in global institutions, norms and technology that generate local and individual changes.
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The Constitutional Imagination (AT4525)
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30 Credit Points
This course will examine anthropological theories of the state, political organization and violence. Through an analysis of both modern and historical case studies from Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas, we will critically examine theories of state of modern and non-modern state formation and organisation, and the nexus of religion and colonial history. In the second half of the course, particular attention will we paid to the ethnography of violence as a mode of state and proto-state political action.
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The Political Anthropology of Indigenous Rights (AT4547)
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30 Credit Points
Indigeneity is one of the more controversial relations created by globalisation. Widely criticised for being ‘essentialist’ and ‘anti-liberal’, it is one of the more quickly growing identities recognized by the United Nations and defended in the constitutions of many nation-states. Using anthropological insight, this course survey the history of the term, study its expansion from the ‘salt-water colonies’ and ‘settler states’ to the heartland of Europe, and explore some of the challenges and advantages of the term. The seminar will explore how the term has come to be used in different post-colonial situations from the classic “heartlands” of indigeneity in North America, Latin America, and Northern Fennoscandia, to new contexts in China, India, Africa. The course will also explore how the politics of aboriginal rights has become closely linked to struggles for recognition, environmentalism, and collective struggles against neo-liberalism. The course is run in a seminar format with students encouraged to weigh and evaluate the results of their reading.
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War and Peace in International Politics (IR4528)
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30 Credit Points
The course aims to provide students with an understanding of how conflict between ethno-national groups impacts on international politics. It explores the responses of the international community to intra-state conflict. Following an initial exploration of the relevant theories, the course focuses on a number of key conflicts in international politics. What explains violent conflict between ethnic groups? What role do external actors play in peace processes? Should the international community intervene to stop violent conflict? What kind of institutional frameworks do external actors promote in post-conflict states?
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Maritime Security (IR4535)
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30 Credit Points
This course aims to introduce students to Maritime Security from a geostrategic perspective. As a result, students are introduced to maritime strategic thinkers, maritime (naval) power and contemporary issues in Maritime Security. This course is a multidisciplinary course that combines elements from Maritime and International Law, Environmental Politics and Security, Economics (Blue Economy) and International Relations. The senior honours variant of this course will include an element of Policy analysis (Maritime Security Policy).
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Wealth, Poverty and International Order (PI4576)
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30 Credit Points
This course introduces advanced Politics and International Relations students to different ways of thinking about how the production of wealth and poverty serves to sediment economic, political and cultural hierarchies globally, especially how international practices depend on the re-production of these hierarchies for their legitimation.
Beginning with a reading of some classic texts on the sources of wealth and poverty, the course offers a close theoretical and historical investigation of the silences around questions of wealth and poverty in dominant understandings of the contemporary shape of the world, including questions of development, gender, security, and human rights.
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Devolution and Constitutional Change (PI4582)
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30 Credit Points
Constitutional change in the UK has been at the centre of political debate for close to two decades. Most recently, referendums in Wales (2011), Scotland (2014) and the UK-wide EU referendum (2016) have provided significant impetus to these discussions. This course will place these changes in a historical and comparative context and consider why these methods of decentralisation have been followed.
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Gender and Politics (PI4584)
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30 Credit Points
This course introduces students to key ideas utilised in the analysis of gender and politics. It engages students with scholarship from the fields of Political Science and International Relations, offering an in-depth analysis of cases ranging from the racial politics of the #MeToo campaign to discussion of gender quotas, the politics of gendered labour, body and emotions, the causes and implications of gendered violence, political apologies and peace.
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Good Governance & Anti - Corruption Policy (PI4587)
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30 Credit Points
This course investigates the politics of good governance and anti-corruption policies inside and beyond the borders of Europe. It focuses on the concepts of corruption and good governance, explores major theoretical approaches regarding fight against corruption and addresses specific cases such as corruption in old patrimonial communist states, state capture in Southeast Europe, oligarchs in Europe’s near abroad and lords of poverty in Africa.
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Northern Ireland: Small, Dirty War (PI4588)
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30 Credit Points
This course investigates claims that the British state and its security forces, and Republican and Loyalist paramilitary organisations, were engaged in a ‘dirty war’ in Northern Ireland. The theory and practice of dirty war is addressed via strategic and tactical evolution on the part of the British security forces and the IRA during the euphemistically termed ‘Troubles’.
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Roads, Mobility, Movement, Migration (AT4026)
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30 Credit Points
In this course students will be introduced to the topical themes in contemporary anthropology: roads, automobility, car cultures, migration, road narratives, and roads in film and literature. The course is based on the notions of movement and mobility and will incorporate the ethnographic material from the North, including Scotland and Siberia. During the course students will conduct their own research on the road of their choice. The course includes: a fieldwork element, screenings of documentary films about roads, and weekly student-led discussions.
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Anthropology of the North (AT4044)
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30 Credit Points
Through a series of lectures and a mix of tutor and student led tutorials, this course focuses on the sometimes difficult history of anthropology and the circumpolar north. Misconceptions (sometimes intentionally created) about the people who live there and their relationships to the environment have informed both state policy and anthropological theory and now is the time for a new anthropology of the north to set the record straight. Students will be encouraged and expected to do their own research on topics of their own choosing and bring these insights back to the course through lively tutorial discussions.
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More Than Human (AT4538)
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30 Credit Points
This course explores new directions in how we think about humans and other species.
Recent years have seen an upsurge in interest in how the social sciences and humanities deal with animals, plants and other organisms and we scrutinise these cutting edge ideas in depth. A lot of emphasis is placed on trying to think through real life encounters and issues, from a walk in the park to new revelations about life from the bottom of the ocean. Although the focus is on anthropological work, the course should appeal to students from a wide range of backgrounds.
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Anthropology and Art: on Place, Landscape and Materials (AT4548)
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30 Credit Points
Anthropology and art have much to offer each other. Taking historical and contemporary perspectives, students in this course will debate the cultural significance of art and the nature of creativity. We will focus particularly on questions of place, landscape and materials through a combined art-anthropology approach. The course will use the University of Aberdeen’s own art and ethnographic collections, and we will also work with Peacock Visual Arts in Aberdeen.
