Social Anthropology 1B 2011-12

SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY 1B (SCAN08002) 2011/2012

COURSE GUIDELINES, LECTURE PROGRAMME, READING LIST

THE UNIVERSITY of EDINBURGH SCHOOL OF SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCE

*This booklet should be read in conjunction with the 2011-12, Social and Political Science, Student Handbook - a guide to common information and procedures for students in first and/or second year courses throughout the School. There you will find detailed information on a wide variety of topics (including assessment of coursework, criteria for grading work, plagiarism, study skills, course evaluation, etc.). www.sps.ed.ac.uk/__data/assets/word_doc/0008/72476/SPSYear1_and_2H-

Social Anthropology 1B 2011-12 book11-12GoldenCopy1.doc What is Social Anthropology?

Social Anthropology is the comparative study of human conduct and thought in their social context. Societies around the world vary enormously in their social, cultural and political forms, and their individual members display an initially overwhelming diversity of ideas and behaviour. The study of these variations, and the common humanity which underlies them and renders them intelligible to sympathetic outsiders, lies at the heart of Social Anthropology. Anthropologists acquire their information through a distinctive method termed participant observation. This means that they spend many months or even years living among the people with whom they are researching, sharing their experiences as far as possible, and hence attempting to gain a well-rounded understanding of that society and of the activities and opinions of its members. The remainder of this booklet* provides: *a map detailing the location of Social Anthropology and the lecture theatre *details concerning the teaching of the course *details concerning the assessment of the course *communication between students and teaching staff * a guide to Reading Materials * a week-by-week course programme

Social Anthropology 1B 2011-12 Map Social Anthropology is located at: Chrystal Macmillan Building (CMB) 15A George Square The lectures will be held in: David Hume Tower, Lecture Theatre A Mondays and Thursdays, 16.10-17.00 The videos will be held in: David Hume Tower, Lecture Theatre C

Social Anthropology 1B 2011-12 A GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE COURSE I. Aims, Learning Outcomes, Transferable Skills 1. Aims

This semester-long course aims to help students develop a sound basic knowledge and a critical understanding of the relevance of the academic discipline of Social Anthropology to developmental challenges worldwide. It emphasises the practical relevance of Social Anthropology to the challenges of promoting development, social justice, and well-being. It explores both the actual and potential benefits of ethnography (of places organizations, and kinds of activity), of analytical and conceptual anthropology, and of anthropological methods and values. It also explores the factors that limit or facilitate the potential practical value of anthropology, and compares the respective contributions of anthropologists working from within and outside academia. 2. Learning Outcomes Students will gain an understanding of: ethnography as both process and product; an historical appreciation of the development of the concepts of fieldwork; and begin to apply that understanding to ethnographic works. They will become familiar with more of the basic anthropological concepts and the analysis of cultural materials from around the world. 3. Transferable Skills While studying Social Anthropology, students will be encouraged to gain or further develop a range of other useful skills: reading and writing skills - exercising and improving their skills in reading unfamiliar and often complex material, students are expected to order their own arguments and present them in the form of written essays. Returned with comments, these essays will form an important part of the overall assessment. oral skills - developing further their skills in communicating complex material in a clear and engaging way, students are expected to participate in the tutorial discussions which are focused on the oral presentation of sophisticated arguments and debates. bibliographical skills - in presenting their written and oral work, students are expected to learn how to use the various libraries at the University and to familiarize themselves with the ways in which bibliographical information should be compiled, edited and presented. word-processing skills - with easy access to computers and a variety of computing courses, students are expected to word-process their essays and learn to use email (in order to contact tutors).

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using the Web - becoming accustomed to accessing relevant web sites (both in the context of tutorial discussions and the writing of essays) constitutes an important part of this course.

II. Teaching 1. Lectures There are two 50 minute lectures every week: Mondays & Thursdays, 16.10 to 17.00. 2. Lecture Outline

Introduction (Dr Joost Fontein & Dr Neil Thin)

Better Living Through Anthropology? Cross-cultural Studies of Wellbeing (Dr Neil Thin) Although more commonly associated with the study of harm and its mitigation, social science can help us understand how people conceptualise and try to achieve good lives and good societies. The distinctive contributions of anthropology come from holistic and cross-cultural studies which explore the interplay between universals and diversity in the ways in which wellbeing is anticipated, experienced, and evaluated, and in the ways in which it features in ideas about what a good society should be like. This section of the course invites you to consider not only the contributions anthropology has made and could make to understanding well-being and the conceptualisation of individuals and their lives and experiences, but also whether the study of anthropology could help you lead a better life and help others to do so too. Environments, Landscapes & Objects (Dr Joost Fontein) Stuff matters. We all exist materially and in a material world, and these dimensions of peoples lives are not separate from culture, history or politics but fundamentally intertwined with them. The lectures in this half of the course will invite you to consider how anthropology has engaged with three important and inter-related aspects of what we might loosely call material culture; these are landscapes, environments and objects. We begin by considering environmentalism by focusing particularly on questions of nature & culture, the cultural construction of nature & gender and the politics of conservation. The next three lectures will explore the anthropology of landscape, the connection between landscape and memory, and the power inherent in space and particularly maps. The last three lectures will look at objects, beginning with an exploration of how political ideologies can be embedded in public and private spaces, followed by an exploration of the social lives of things, and finishing with a discussion of how objects do things (ie have agency). 3. Tutorials Tutorials provide an opportunity for you to discuss your own ideas and your reaction to the readings and lectures. The tutors will also assist you in the organization of your essays and preparation for the exam at the end of the year. Each tutorial consists of 10-15 students. Tutorials meet weekly, starting in the second

Social Anthropology 1B 2011-12

week of the course. Thus, your first tutorial takes place in the week starting Monday, 23 January 2012. Tutorial attendance and the prompt submission of coursework are requirements for all students. Students who fail to attend at least six out of nine tutorials without good reason will have their final mark reduced by one percentage point for each unapproved absence above the threshold, and will not have their final marks raised if their performance overall is borderline. Please note that pressure of work or problems of time management are not considered an acceptable reason for non-attendance at tutorials or for late submission of work. How to sign up By the time you read this you should (if pre-registered for the course) have received an email asking you to sign up for a tutorial online using MyEd https://www.myed.ed.ac.uk. Dont forget to make a note of the time and day, name of your tutor, and room in which your tutorial will take place. Once you have signed up for a specific tutorial group, you will usually stay with it for the rest of the semester. During Lecture 1 (Monday 16 January), the Course Organizer will be able to answer queries about tutorials, and thereafter if you have a query about your tutorial time or place, please contact the course secretary May Rutherford via email may.rutherford@ed.ac.uk or in the Undergraduate Teaching Office, Chrystal Macmillan Building, ground floor. Tutorial Programme: what will we be doing? The first tutorial will provide you with essentials about the programme and procedures for the rest of the course, and it is therefore all the more important that you do not miss it. Tutorials have a flexible format, but they do follow a pre-defined course of work. In order to gain a basic understanding of Social Anthropology and to have the opportunity to discuss the lecture/reading material, tutorial work will closely follow the discussion topics as specified in this course guide. Attention will also be paid to developing the necessary writing and bibliographical skills ensuring that all students can research, write and present essays effectively. In addition, guided by past years final exam papers, tutorials will help you prepare for the exam. III. Assessment The Degree Examination mark for the course will be based on a combination of: Essay (1) = 40% Final Exam = 60%

Social Anthropology 1B 2011-12

1. Essay You are required to write one essay, with the following task: Write a review essay focusing mainly on ONE ethnographic monograph, paying particular attention to whether and how it reveals the quality of people's lives and experiences. The essay is to be submitted by 12 noon on Monday 27 February in the essay box on the ground floor of the Chrystal Macmillan Building. The essay should be submitted with a cover sheet, which asks for information including your examination number, the course you are taking and your tutors name. Since all coursework is anonymised, you are identified by your examination number, and not your name (so dont put your name on page headers/footers ). Cover sheets can be found on a table beside the Social Anthropology information point on the Ground Floor CMB. The essay should be between 1,500 - 2,000 words length. You must provide a word count on the cover sheet. Please note that the word count does not include the bibliography. The penalty for excessive word length in coursework is one mark deducted for each 20 word excess. As we believe that your time management and organizational skills are part of the challenge, we will automatically deduct 5 marks per working day an essay is overdue, unless special permission for late submission has been sought beforehand. Anticipate computer problems, difficulties in securing readings and pressure due to other essays. These are not valid grounds for an extension. For work handed in later than 5 working days after the due date a mark of 0 will be recorded. If you have good reason for not meeting a coursework deadline, you may request an extension from either your tutor (for extensions of up to five working days) or the course organiser (for extensions of six or more working days), normally before the deadline. A good reason is illness, or serious personal circumstances, but not pressure of work or poor time management. You may be asked to provide supporting evidence (eg. a note from your Director of Studies or your Doctor). DO NOT ask other members of staff. If you fail to submit all of your coursework without good reason, you will receive a coursework mark of zero. The essay is marked by your own tutor. The course organizer will second-read a sample of essays from each tutorial group to ensure equal marking standards across tutorial groups. Your degree exam is anonymously marked by tutors and full-time teaching staff. All work submitted for assessment is accepted on the clear understanding that it is the students own work. Every year some students are found copying passages from books or other students work without proper citation. This constitutes plagiarism and

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is considered one of the most serious offences in the academic world. It is dealt with accordingly. Do not copy work from other sources, including the internet. See the link (http://www.sps.ed.ac.uk/undergrad/year_1_2/what_is_plagiarism) for further information on the policy on plagiarism, and how to avoid plagiarism in your work. HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR ESSAY ELECTRONICALLY Turnitin The School is now using the Turnitin system to check that essays submitted for first and second-year courses do not contain plagiarised material. Turnitin compares every essay against a constantly-updated database, which highlights all plagiarised work. Instructions for submitting your essay You must submit one paper copy of your essay in the essay box (Ground Floor CMB) by 12 noon on Monday 27 February. In addition, you must also submit an electronic version via WebCT by the same deadline. (Please note penalties will be incurred if the essay is not submitted on WebCT) The instructions for doing so are as follows: 1. Log in to WebCT via MyEd and click on Social Anthropology 1B. 2. Go to the Click here to submit your essay link to submit your essay to the Turnitin assignment inbox. 3. To begin the submission process click on the submit icon which is found in the submit column. 4. Your name should be automatically filled in on the form. Type in Essay in the submission title as the form cannot be sent unless all the fields are complete. 5. Next, click on the Browse button to open your computers file browser and use it to browse to the document you wish to submit. Make sure the drop down box at the top of the form still says submit a paper by: file upload. Before clicking on the submit button, make sure that all the fields in the form are complete (if you leave one blank you will receive an error message and the file upload box will be cleared). Click the submit button when you are happy you are submitting the correct file. 6. At this point, a plain text version of the essay will be displayed to you (it wont show any formatting, images, etc.). Review this to ensure you are submitting the correct document (the document itself will be sent to the system in its original format). If you are happy, click on the Submit Paper button to submit your assignment. If you have made a mistake you can click on the cancel, go back link, which will take you back to the submission form. 7. Youve now submitted an assignment! A receipt from the system is displayed. 8. Click on the go to portfolio link to return to the assignment inbox.

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9. On returning to the assignment inbox, you can view your submission to make sure everything is as it should be. 10. Clicking on the title you gave your assignment opens a viewer that displays your submission and also contains the paper ID which can be used by the administrators of the system to identify your work if there is a problem. 11. Clicking on the document icon in the contents column allows you to see your work in its original submitted format. You can also follow this link for more detailed instructions: http://www.ed.ac.uk/polopoly_fs/1.22364!fileManager/submitturnitinplwebct.pdf Please note that late submissions are unlikely to be accepted by the Turnitin system and you should contact the Secretary, May Rutherford, may.rutherford@ed.ac.uk if you are unable to submit your electronic copy. Referencing and bibliography References and bibliography should follow the author-date system. For example, in the body of an essay: Single authors quotation or idea referred to: (Smith 1989: 213) Two authors, more than one page: (Johnson & Margolin 1990: 245 - 247) Several authors: (Kennedy et al 1994: 156) Citation of another authors work in a secondary text: (Baxter 1982 cited in Comaroff 1988: 16)

In your bibliography follow these guidelines: For a book by one author: Smith, J G 1989 The Anthropologist as Apprentice: Lessons from the Field, London: Vertigo Press. For two authors, a chapter in a book: Johnson, M & P Margolin 1990 'Children at risk' In The Problems of Children on the Streets in Brazil (ed) J Butterfield. Englewood Cliffs: PrenticeHall. For a journal article Simpson, Bob 1994 'Bringing the "unclear" family into focus: divorce and remarriage in contemporary Britain' Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 29: 831-851. Long quotations (more than 4 lines) should be indented with no quotation marks; shorter quotations should be incorporated in the main text with single quotation marks. Authors name, etc., should appear at end of quote before the full stop.

Social Anthropology 1B 2011-12 2. The Final Exam Paper

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The Examination consists of one paper and takes place at the end of the semester. It will provide 60% of your Degree Examination mark. In your tutorials, towards the end of the course, you will have the opportunity to prepare for the exam by reviewing course materials, considering revision strategies, practising exam questions, and so on. Details of the exam will be provided at a later date. Your final grade will be decided between your tutor, the course organizer, and the Board of examiners. In the course of the tutorials you will have the opportunity to discuss criteria and processes of assessment. Knowing how you are being assessed ought to help you produce work that we will be glad to give a high mark! Note: Registration for degree examinations is handled automatically by the Universitys student record system. You are, however, responsible for checking that the details against your own name are correct. You should do this via the Edinburgh Student Portal around the third or fourth week of semester 2 and advise your Director of Studies if there are any discrepancies. In order to achieve a Degree Pass in Social Anthropology 1B students must pass the Examination. The pass mark is 40. See School booklet for details of further requirements for a course pass. IV. Communications If you have any problems, they should be taken first of all to your tutor. The easiest time to see your tutor is just before or after a tutorial. Messages for the tutors can be sent through email or left in their individual tutor folders kept in a cupboard in the Social Anthropology information unit on the ground floor of the Chrystal Macmillan Building. This is also where you will find a mail slot for depositing your essay. More serious personal problems are best dealt with by your Director of Studies, who will let us know, for example, if you have been ill or, for some other serious reason, unable to keep up with the work for part of the course. Administrative problems to do with the course can usually be dealt with by your tutor, but you may if necessary consult the Course Organizer, Dr Joost Fontein, Room 5.25, CMB, j.fontein@ed.ac.uk, Ph. 651 3861, e.g. about problems to do with tutorial teaching. There are various avenues for you to provide us with feedback about the course: at the end of each section, some tutorial time will be given over to feedback sessions on various aspects of the course, and the tutors will pass on your comments to the course organizer. we will ask each tutorial group to elect a tutorial representative. Some of the tutorial reps will become the class representatives (their names and contact addresses will be posted on the Social Anthropology 1B noticeboard and on WebCT) serving on the Staff-Student Liaison Committee. The Staff-Student Liaison Committee meets to discuss students ideas about the teaching of the

Social Anthropology 1B 2011-12 course. Make sure you know who is your own tutorial group representative.

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at the end of the course, we ask all students to fill in a questionnaire about the various lecture blocks and other aspects of the course. We do hope you will take note of what you like and dislike as the course progresses, and that you then take the time to share your experience with us. We do our best to include your constructive suggestions into the programme for subsequent years.

Please, check regularly the Social Anthropology 1B Notice Board, located outside the Undergraduate Teaching Office on the ground floor of the Chrystal Macmillan Building, for public announcements and individual messages. V. Reading Materials All books which are on the reading list for the lectures should be available in the Main Librarys Reserve Reading section, on the ground floor. Offprints of many of the articles (including some book chapters) on the list should be available in the file cabinets there. Reading Materials are in heavy demand, so treat them kindly, use the reading room at off-peak times whenever possible, and return readings as soon as you have finished using them. Course Reserve items may be viewed in the Catalogue by selecting the Course Reserve search button and by choosing, from any or all of the drop down menus, the appropriate Course Organizer, Course title or Subject. The items in the lists are organized by first author. Students are not required to purchase any particular books, but it will obviously be more convenient for you if you buy your own copies of books which you intend to use heavily in writing essays and preparing tutorial assignments. Do browse through the Social Anthropology books and periodicals in the Main Library in George Square (mainly GN, 2nd floor), and especially through current, still unbound periodicals (1st Floor Reading Room). Where possible refer to the electronic journal versions, and browse electronically see the various links to ejournal databases and subject guides at http://www.ed.ac.uk/schoolsdepartments/information-services/services/library-museum-gallery/findingresources/library-databases. The following are some of the periodicals which are especially useful: American Ethnologist Annual Review of Anthropology Community Development Journal Cultural Anthropology Current Anthropology Ethnos Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute/MAN Third World Quarterly

Social Anthropology 1B 2011-12 Access to lots of www.anthrosource.net good anthropology texts via

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By way of introduction to the subject, you may find the following books helpful: Barnard, A. 2000 Social Anthropology: A Concise Introduction for Students. Somerset: Studymates Carrithers, M. 1992 Why Humans Have Cultures. Oxford: Oxford University Press Eriksen, T.H. 2004 What is Anthropology? London: Pluto Hendry, J. 1999 An Introduction to Social Anthropology: Other Peoples Worlds. London: Macmillan Press Schultz, Emily A 2005 Cultural anthropology: a perspective on the human condition. New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press As a concise overall guide to the ideas, arguments and history of Social Anthropology, you will also find extremely useful the Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology, 2nd Edition (Barnard, A. & J. Spencer 2010. London and New York: Routledge) In addition, as Social Anthropology 1B focuses on the value of ethnographic work, you must choose an ethnography for use in your tutorials, on which you will write a review for your in-course assessment. Here are some examples of suitable books: Abu-Lughod, L. (1988) Veiled Sentiments: honor and poetry in a Bedouin society . Berkeley: University of California Press Adelson, Naomi, 2000, Being Alive Well: Health and the Politics of Cree Well-Being. University of Toronto Press Ahmed, Amineh (2008) Sorrow and Joy among Muslim Women: The Pukhtuns of Northern Pakistan. Cambridge University Press Becker, Gay (1983) Growing Old in Silence. Berkeley: University of California Press Becker, Gay (1997) Disrupted Lives: How People Create Meaning in a Chaotic World. Berkeley: University of California Press Benedict, Ruth (1935) Patterns of Culture. London: Routledge Boddy, Janice (1989) Wombs and Alien Spirits: Women, Men, and the Zr Cult in Northern Sudan. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press Bourgois, Philippe (2002) [2nd Edition] In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Desjarlais Robert (2003) Sensory Biographies: Lives and Deaths Among Nepals Yolmo Buddhists. Berkeley: University of California Press Desjarlais, Robert (1997) Shelter Blues: Sanity and Selfhood Among the Homeless. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press Du Bois, Cora Alice, 1944, The People of Alor: a Social-Psychological Study of an East Indian Island. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press

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Eder, James F (1987) On the road to tribal extinction: depopulation, deculuration, and adaptive well-being among the Batak of the Philippines. Berkeley: University of California Press [FT online http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view? docId=ft5s200701;query=;brand=ucpress] Epstein, Arnold L. (1992) In the Midst of Life: Affect and Ideation in the World of the Tolai. Berkeley: University of California Press Evans-Pritchard, E.E. (1937) Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic Among the Azande . Oxford: Clarendon Press Fong, Vanessa (2004) Only Hope: Coming of Age under China's One-Child Policy. Stanford: Stanford University Press Gardner, Katy (2002) Age, Narrative and Migration: The Life Course and Life Histories of Bengali Elders in London. Oxford: Berg Gee, Francis Lim Khek, 2008, Imagining the Good Life: Negotiating Culture and Development in Nepal Himalaya. Leiden: Brill Geertz, Clifford (1960) The Religion of Java. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Gregor, Thomas (1985) Anxious Pleasures: the Sexual Lives of an Amazonian People. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Grima, Benedicte (1992) The Performance of Emotion among Paxtun Women. Austin: University of Texas Press Hochschild, Arlie R. (1983) The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. Berkeley, University of California Press Howell, Nancy (2010) Life Histories of the Dobe !Kung: Food, Fatness, and Wellbeing over the Life-span. University of California Press Howell, Nancy (2010) Life Histories of the Dobe !Kung: Food, Fatness, and Wellbeing over the Life-span. University of California Press Josephides, Lisette (2009) Melanesian Odysseys: Negotiating the Self, Narrative, and Modernity. Oxford: Berghahn Kapferer, Bruce, 1983, A Celebration of Demons. Indiana University Press Kayser-Jones, Jeanie S (1981) Old, Alone, and Neglected: Care of the Aged in the United States and Scotland. Berkeley: University of California Press [FT online at http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft1c6003x6] Lamb, Sarah, (2000) White Saris and Sweet Mangoes: Aging, Gender, and Body in North India. Berkeley: University of California Press [FT online at http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view? docId=ft458006c0;query=mangoes;brand=ucpress] Lamb, Sarah, (2009) Aging and the Indian Diaspora: Cosmopolitan Families in India and Abroad. Bloomington : Indiana University Press Levy, Robert I., (1973) Tahitians: Mind and Experience in the Society Islands. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Lim, Gee (2008) Imagining the Good Life: Negotiating Culture and Development in Nepal Himalaya. Leiden: Brill

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Lock, Margaret M., (1993) Encounters with Aging: Mythologies of Menopause in Japan and North America. Berkeley: University of California Press Low, Setha M., 2004, Behind the Gates: Life, Security, and the Pursuit of Happiness in Fortress America. Routledge Mathews, Gordon (1996) What Makes Life Worth Living? How Japanese and Americans Make Sense of Their Worlds. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press Mead, Margaret, (1970) Coming of Age in Samoa. New York: Dell Mentore, George (2005) Of Passionate Curves and Desirable Cadences: Themes on Waiwai Social Being. University of Nebraska Press Montgomery, Heather, 2001, Modern Babylon? Prostituting Children in Thailand. Oxford: Berghahn Myerhoff, Barbara (1978) Number Our Days. New York: Simon & Schuster Nabokov, Isabelle (2000) Religion against the self: an ethnography of Tamil rituals . Oxford: Oxford University Press Obeyesekere, Ganannath (1981) Medusas Hair. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Parker, Richard G. (2001) Bodies, Pleasures, and Passions: Sexual Culture in Contemporary Brazil. Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press Rodgers, Susan [ed] (1995) Telling Lives, Telling History: Autobiography and Historical Imagination in Modern Indonesia. Berkeley: University of California Press FT online at http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view? docId=ft867nb5n6;query=;brand=ucpress Rosaldo, Michelle Z., 1980, Knowledge and Passion: Ilongot Notions of Self and Social Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Ryang, Sonia (2006) Love in Modern Japan: its Estrangement from Self, Sex, and Society. London: Routledge Shostak, Marjorie, (1990) Nisa: the Life and Words of a !Kung Woman. London: Earthscan Turnbull, Colin M., (1983) The Mbuti Pygmies: Change and Adaptation. London: Holt, Rinehart and Winston [or: The Forest People, 1961, or The Mountain People, 1973] van Willigen, John (1989) Gettin' Some Age on Me: Social Organization of Older People in a Rural American Community. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky Verkaaik, Oskar (2004) Migrants And Militants: Fun And Urban Violence In Pakistan. Princeton: Princeton University Press Wallman, Sandra et al (1996) Kampala Women Getting by: Wellbeing in the Time of AIDS. London: James Currey Weston, Kath (2008) Traveling Light: On the Road with America's Poor. Boston, MA: Beacon Press Wikan, Unni (1990) Managing Turbulent Hearts: a Balinese Formula for Living.

Social Anthropology 1B 2011-12 London: University of Chicago Press

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[please note that a large number of excellent ethnographies are available to download free at http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks] In addition, you may like to look at some of the following ethnographic monographs which are relevant to the second half of the course: Bender Barbara (1998) Stonehenge: Making space, London: Berg Fontein, Joost (2006) The Silence of Great Zimbabwe: Contested Landscapes and the Politics of Heritage, London: Ucl Press Lan, David (1985) Guns & Rain, Oxford James Currey Latour, Bruno and Steve Woolgar (1979) Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications Moore, Donald (2005) Suffering for territory: Race, Place & Power in Zimbabwe Duke University press Reynolds, Pamela 1996 Traditional Healers and Childhood in Zimbabwe. Athens, OH: University of Ohio Press Rabinow, Paul (1996) Making PCR: A Story of Biotechnology . Chicago: University of Chicago Press All information contained in this booklet can also be found on the Social Anthropology website http://www.san.ed.ac.uk.

Disabled students
The School welcomes students with disabilities (including those with specific learning difficulties such as dyslexia) and is working to make all its courses accessible. If you have special needs which may require adjustments to be made to ensure access to such settings as lectures, tutorials or exams, you should discuss these with your Director of Studies who will advise on the appropriate procedures. You can also contact the Student Disability Service, Third Floor, Main Library, George Square (telephone 650 6828) and an Advisor will be happy to meet with you. The Advisor can discuss possible adjustments and specific examination arrangements with you, assist you with an application for Disabled Students' Allowance, give you information about available technology and personal assistance such as note takers, proof readers or dyslexia tutors, and prepare a Learning Profile for your School which outlines recommended adjustments. You will be expected to provide the Disability Office with evidence of disability - either a letter from your GP or specialist, or evidence of specific learning difficulty. For dyslexia or dyspraxia this evidence must be a recent Chartered Educational Psychologist's assessment. If you do not have this, the Disability Office can put you in touch with an independent Educational Psychologist. WE LOOK FORWARD TO WORKING WITH ALL OF YOU AND HOPE YOU ENJOY THE COURSE!

Social Anthropology 1B 2011-12 Week 1 Monday 16 Jan

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Course Introduction Dr Neil Thin & Dr Joost Fontein

BETTER LIVING THROUGH ANTHROPOLOGY? CROSS-CULTURAL STUDIES OF WELLBEING Weeks 1-5 Thursday 19 January - Thursday 16 February (9 lectures) Dr Neil Thin Social science tends to be associated with social problems with the study of harm and its mitigation. But it can also help us understand how people conceptualise and try to achieve good lives and good societies. To sketch out possibilities for social progress requires recognition and analysis of both suffering and wellbeing, of pathologies and social goods. The distinctive contributions of anthropology come from holistic and cross-cultural studies which explore the interplay between universals and diversity in the ways in which wellbeing is anticipated, experienced, and evaluated, and in the ways in which it features in ideas about what a good society should be like. This section of the course invites you to consider the contributions anthropology has made and could make to understanding well-being and the conceptualisation of individuals and their lives and experiences. You are also invited to think about whether the study of anthropology could help you lead a better life and help others to do so too. Thursday 19 Jan Romanticism and critiques of modernity A great deal of early ethnography was composed as an antidote to western ethnocentric smugness and racism. Many seemed to follow an unwritten rule that you could be critical of western culture but not of nonwestern culture. Treatment of well-being was therefore navely romantic, even if it also offered some usefully provocative challenges to western concepts of progress. Key reading Sahlins, Marshall D., 1968/1974, 'Notes on the original affluent society.' In Stone Age Economics. London: Tavistock http://www.appropriate-economics.org/materials/Sahlins.pdf Kaplan, David, 2000, The darker side of the "Original Affluent Society". Journal of Anthropological Research 56,3:301-324 Further reading Wilk, Richard, 1999, Quality of life and the anthropological perspective.' Feminist Economics 5,2: 91-93

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Lee, Richard B., 1992, Art, science, or politics? The Crisis in HunterGatherer Studies. American Anthropologist 94, 1: 31-54 Monday 23 Jan Theoretical approaches to wellbeing Anthropological treatment of happiness in crosscultural perspective is only very recently beginning to emerge, although this theme was prominent in social and moral philosophy in the 19th century. This new trend is introduced, along with some key debates in the cross-cultural study of psychological well-being and their implications for policy. Key reading Christopher, John C., 1999, Situating psychological well-being: exploring the cultural roots of its theory and research. Journal of Counseling and Development 77, 2:141-152 Further reading Thin, Neil, 2008, Good feelings and good lives: why anthropology can ill afford to ignore well-being. In G. Mathews and C. Izquierdo [eds], Pursuits of Happiness: Well-Being in Anthropological Perspective. London and New York: Berghahn [or: Thin, Neil, 2007, "Realising the substance of their happiness": how anthropology forgot about Homo Gauisus.' in A. Corsin Jimenez [ed], Culture and the Politics of Freedom: the Anthropology of Well-being. London: Pluto Press; or: Socially responsible cheermongery: on the sociocultural contexts and levels of social happiness policies. In R. Biswas-Diener (Ed.), 2010, Positive Psychology as Social Change. Netherlands: Springer pdfs will be available on WebCT] Colby, Benjamin N, 1987, Well-being: a theoretical program, American Anthropologist. 89:879-95 Wierzbicka, Anna, 2004, ''Happiness' in cross-linguistic & crosscultural perspective' Daedalus 133, 2 [Special issue on happiness]: 34 43 Reddy, William M., 1997, 'Against constructionism: the historical ethnography of emotions. Current Anthropology 38, 3, 327-334 Tutorial Discussion Thursday 26 Jan Does Sahlins show genuine and plausible interest in the well-being of hunter-gatherers? Selves, feelings, and lives

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Discussion of happiness or of the goodness of life requires some concept of the individual whose well-being is being considered. We explore here some of the diversity in self-concepts and in evaluation of the self that need to be considered if we are to develop cross-cultural understanding of happiness. Key reading Mathews, Gordon , 1996, The stuff of dreams, fading: Ikigai and "the Japanese self Ethos 24,4: 718-747 Wikan, Unni, 1987, 'Public grace and private fears: gaiety, offense and sorcery in northern Bali'. Ethos 15,4,337-365 Further reading Heine, S.J., D.R. Lehman, H.R. Markus and S. Kitayama, 1999, Is there a universal need for positive self-regard?, Psychological Review 106: 766794 Hollan, Douglas W., 1992, 'Emotion work and the value of emotional equanimity among the Toraja'. Ethnology 31: 45-56 Hochschild, Arlie R., 1979, Emotion work, feeling rules, and social structure. American Journal of Sociology 85:551-575 [or Hochschild, Arlie R., 1983, The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. Berkeley, University of California Press esp chs: Feeling as Clue and Managing Feeling] Biswas-Diener, R., Vitterso, J. and Diener, E. 2005. Most people are pretty happy, but there is cultural variation: The Inughuit, the Amish and the Maasai. Journal of Happiness Studies, 6:205-226. Monday 30 Jan Wellbeing through the life course 1: Youth Wellbeing themes have been slightly more prominent in anthropologies of childhood than in other areas of anthropology. Discourses of parenting, schooling, and childcare give strong clues about cultural values. But modern social science and social policy have introduced new pediatric and pedagogical discourses which have steered our attention from childhood happiness to suffering and academic achievement. Childhood is an elusive concept both a life stage in its own right and a prelude to adulthood. Key reading Panter-Brick, Catherine, 2002, Street children, human rights, and public health: a critique and future directions. Annual Review of Anthropology 31:14771

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Montgomery, Heather, 2007, Working with child prostitutes in Thailand: problems of practice and interpretation. Childhood 14: 415 430 [OR Montgomery, H. 2000, Imposing rights? A case study of child prostitution in Thailand. in Cowan, J., M. Dembour and R. Wilson [eds], Culture and Rights: Anthropological Perspectives, pp. 80-101] Further reading Moore, Henrietta L., 2004 Quarterly 77,4: 735-746 On being young. Anthropological

Taylor, Lisa Rende, 2005, Dangerous trade-offs: the behavioral ecology of child labor and prostitution in rural Northern Thailand Current Anthropology 46, 3, 1 Mead, Margaret, 1970, Coming of Age in Samoa. New York: Dell Tutorial Discussion Either: Based on the Mathews or the Wikan readings, do you think that the Western assumption of a distinct and coherent self is a sound basis for universalist conceptions of well-being? Or: How useful is the concept of the life course in crosscultural studies of wellbeing? Culture and Aspiration Peoples experiences and appreciation of life are strongly influenced by their culturally-shaped aspirations. Management of ambition is a key aspect of social policy in every culture. The freedom to develop and pursue personal ambitions is one of the hallmarks of modernity and globalization, but it can come at a very high personal and collective cost. Conversely, cultural inhibition of individualistic motives, though prosocial and promotive of sharing, cooperation and egalitarian respect, can harm everyone if it instils a culture of fear or apathy. Key reading Appadurai, Arjun, 2004, The capacity to aspire: culture and the terms of recognition. in Rao, Vijayendra, and Michael Walton [eds], Culture and Public Action. Stanford University Press, pp 59-84 [also available on Google Books] Further reading Foster, George M., 1965 Peasant society and the image of limited good American Anthropologist 67: 293-315

Thursday 2 Feb

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Radhakrishnan, P. & Chan, D. K-S., 1997, Cultural differences in the relation between self-discrepancy and life satisfaction: examining personal and parental goals. International Journal of Psychology, 32 387-398 Lutz, Catherine, 1983, 'Parental goals, ethnopsychology and the development of emotional meaning'. Ethos 11,4,246-262 Monday 6 Feb Wellbeing through the life course 2: midlife crisis Life stages and transitions can be approached as biological, chronological, sociological, or cultural phenomena. This lecture explores some ethnographies of common midlife crisis and what they tell us about concepts of life course and wellbeing in different cultural contexts. Key reading Becker, Gay, 1994, Metaphors in disrupted lives: infertility and cultural constructions of continuity. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 8,4: 383-41 Further reading Lock, Margaret, 1986, 'Ambiquities of aging: Japanese experience and perceptions of menopause' Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 10,1:2346 Kagawa-Singer, Marjorie, et al, 2002, Comparison of the menopause and midlife transition between Japanese American and European American women. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 16,1:. 64-91 Tutorial Discussion Thursday 9 Feb What are the moral and practical implications of ethnographic studies of culture and aspiration? Love and empathy After previous neglect, love has become an important theme in cross-cultural studies of emotion. This literature makes crucial contributions to our understanding of how well-being and aspirations are culturally constructed, as well as to the appreciation of strong influences of our common evolutionary genetic heritage. This lecture discusses love in relation to other themes like sex, marriage, and empathy. Key reading Jankowiak, William, and Thomas Paladino 2008 'Desiring longing for love: a tripartite conundrum' In W.Jankowiak sex, [ed],

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Intimacies: Between Love and Sex Around the World. W. Jankowiak, ed. Columbia University Press, pp. 1-36 www.pstc.brown.edu/nmu/intro%20intimacies_WJankowiak.pdf Hatfield, Elaine, and Richard L. Rapson (2002). Passionate love and sexual desire: Cross-cultural and historical perspectives. In A. Vangelisti, H. T. Reis, & M. A. Fitzpatrick (Eds.) Stability and Change in Relationships. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 306-324 www.elainehatfield.com/ch70.pdf Further reading Lindholm, Charles, 1998, 'Love and structure' Theory, Culture & Society 15,3:243-263 Hollan, Douglas, and Jason Throop, 2008, 'Whatever happened to empathy?: Introduction' Ethos 36,4: 385 401 Baumeister, Roy F., and M.R. Leary, 1995, 'The need to belong: desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation.', Psychological Bulletin 117:497-529 Oishi, Shigehiro; Koo, Minkyung; Akimoto, Sharon (2008) 'Culture, interpersonal perceptions, and happiness in social interactions' Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 34,3:307-320 n.b. Friday 10 Feb Monday 13 Feb Video: Goddess and the Computer [essential viewing as prelude to Mondays lecture] Livelihoods, environment, and well-being For most of humanity, ensuring survival through gathering or production of food has been the core wellbeing concern. Modern development initiatives, however, can sometimes underestimate the extent to which productive activities are intertwined with the social and cosmological relationships that facilitate good lives. Here, agricultural examples show how many dimensions of wellbeing need to be considered when evaluating or changing livelihoods. We will also look at some of the literature on how evolutionary factors influence our experience of the natural environment. Key reading Lansing, J. Stephen (1987) Balinese water temples and management of irrigation. American Anthropologist 89, 326-41 the

Richards, Paul (1993) Cultivation: knowledge or performance? in M. Hobart (ed), An Anthropological Critique of Development. London: Routledge. Pages 61-78 [e-book accessible via Library Catalogue]

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Further reading Nesse, Randolph 2004 'Natural selection and the elusiveness of happiness' Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B http://www-personal.umich.edu/~nesse/Articles/NesseEvolElusiveHappiness-ProcRoyalSoc-2004.pdf Grinde, Bjorn, 1996, Darwinian happiness: biological advice on the quality of life. Journal of Social and Evolutionary Systems, 19, 3 [or Grinde, Bjrn, 2005, 'Darwinian happiness: can the evolutionary perspective on well-being help us improve society?'. World Futures 61,4:317-329\ Charlton, Bruce G, 2001, What is the meaning of life? Animism, generalised anthropomorphism and social intelligence Buss, David M., 2000, The evolution of happiness. American Psychologist 55, 1, 15-23 Tutorial Discussion Based on Lansing, Richards, or any other livelihood-related ethnography, discuss the processes, relationships, and products through which livelihoods contribute to wellbeing. Wellbeing through the life course 3: ethnogerontology The study of cultural conceptions of old age gives us important clues as to the cultural influences on wellbeing. Here we explore ethnographies and discourses on the achievement of critical transitions and preparation for death, social re-positioning, reinvention of the self, and links between body, environment, time, and wellbeing. Key reading Lamb, Sarah, 1997, The making and unmaking of persons: notes on aging and gender in north India. Ethos 25:279302 [and/or see either of her ethnographies listed above: White Saris, or Aging and the Indian Diaspora.] Further reading Keith, Jennie, 1980, "The best is yet to be": toward an anthropology of age. Annual Review of Anthropology, 9:339-6 Tsuji, Yohko, 2005, Time is not up: temporal complexity of older Americans lives. Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology 20,1:326 Whitaker, Elizabeth D., 2005, The bicycle makes the eyes smile: exercise, aging, and psychophysical well-being in older Italian cyclists. Medical Anthropology 24:1-43

Thursday 16 Feb

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Luborsky, Mark R., 1994, 'The retirement process: making the person and cultural meanings malleable', Medical Anthropology Quarterly 8,4:411-429 Fry, P.S. 1984 Positive and negative attributions of longevity: a crosssectional study of the perceptions of the elderly from three socioeconomic conditions. International Journal of Psychology, 19,3:217-233 The week from 20 to 24 February is Innovative Learning Week during which there are no normal classes but there will be several events relating to social anthropology and social science more generally see www.sps.ed.ac.uk for more information. REMEMBER: THE ESSAY IS DUE ON MONDAY 27 FEBRUARY 2012 AT 12 NOON. ONE COPY MUST BE SUBMITTED IN THE ESSAY BOX AND ONE COPY ON WEBCT BY THE SAME DEADLINE!

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ENVIRONMENTS, LANDSCAPES & OBJECTS Weeks 6 - 10 Monday 27 February - Monday 26 March (10 lectures) Dr Joost Fontein Stuff matters. We all exist materially and in a material world, and these dimensions of peoples lives are not separate from culture, history or politics but fundamentally intertwined with them. The lectures in this half of the course will invite you to consider how anthropology has engaged with three important and inter-related aspects of what we might loosely call material culture; these are landscapes, environments and objects. We begin by considering environmentalism by focusing particularly on questions of nature & culture, the cultural construction of nature & gender and the politics of conservation. The next three lectures will explore the anthropology of landscape, the connection between landscape and memory, and the power inherent in space and particularly maps. The last three lectures will look at objects, beginning with an exploration of how political ideologies can be embedded in public and private spaces, followed by an exploration of the social lives of things, and finishing with a discussion of how objects do things (ie have agency). Monday 27 Feb Environmentalism The growth of Environmentalist movements on the latter part of the 20th century has not been ignored by anthropologists. In this lecture we begin to consider anthropological critiques of environmentalism that emerged in the 1990s as part of wider questioning of the presumed universality of the Nature/Culture distinction, which still lies behind much environmentalist thinking. Key Reading: Milton K. 1993 Introduction in Milton K. (ed) Environmentalism: The view from Anthropology London: Routledge Further Reading: Grove-White R. 1993 Environmentalism: A new discourse for technological society in Milton K. (ed) Environmentalism: The view from Anthropology London: Routledge Ingold T. 1993 Globes and Spheres: the Topology of environmentalism in Milton K 1993 (ed) Environmentalism: The view from Anthropology London: Routledge Bird-David N. 1993 Tribal metaphorization of human-nature relatedness in Milton K 1993 (ed) Environmentalism: The view from Anthropology London: Routledge

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Descola & Palsson 1996 Introduction in Descola & Palsson (eds) Nature & Society: Anthropological perspectives London: Routledge Thursday 1 March Nature, culture & gender The anthropological critique of the Nature /culture distinction emerged at key theoretical moment in anthropology, when structuralist analysis increasingly gave way to poststructuralist critique. This was also a moment when Feminism had a huge impact on anthropology, and often the two coincided. This lecture explores how early feminist anthropology working within or influenced by a structuralist perspective, was soon subject of profound anthropological critique on the basis of its problematic reification of the Nature/Culture distinction. Key Reading : MacCormack 1980 Nature, Culture and Gender: A critique in MacCormack & Strathern (eds) Nature, Culture and gender Cambridge University Press Further Reading: Ortner S. 1974. Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture? In Rosaldo, M. & L. Lamphere (eds) Woman Culture and Society. Stanford: Stanford University Press. (Also published as chapter 2 in Ortner S. 1996. Making Gender: The Politics and Erotics of Culture Boston: Beacon Press.) Gillison G. 1980 Images of nature in Gimi thought in MacCormack & Strathern (eds) Nature, Culture and gender Cambridge University Press Strathern M. 1980 No Nature, no culture; the Hagen Case in MacCormack & Strathern (eds) Nature, Culture and gender Cambridge University Press Tutorial Discussion Monday 5 March How can anthropology engage with environmentalism?

The lie of the land The ethnocentricities of environmentalist dependence upon the problematic Nature/Culture distinction have not been the only cause of anthropological concern. As feminist critique took hold, it was matched by increasingly self-conscious postcolonial critiques

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of conservation projects in Africa, Asia and elsewhere. These recognised that not only were colonial and postcolonial conservation projects often based on bad science, but also that they often justified deeply exclusionist policies, which have seen farmers, herders and indigenous peoples blamed for environmental degradation, and removed from landscapes they have long managed and indeed forged. Key Reading: Fairhead & Leach 1996 Rethinking the Forest-Savanna Mosaic: Colonial Science and its relics in West Africa in Leach and Mearns (eds) The Lie of the Land Oxford: James Currey Further Reading: Lohman L 1993 Green Orientalism in The Ecologist Vol. 23, No. 6 Guha R. 1997 The Authoritarian Biologist and the arrogance of Antihumanism in The Ecologist Vol 27 No. 1. Leach and Mearns 1996 Environmental Change & Policy: Challenging Received Wisdom in Africa in Leach and Mearns (eds) The Lie of the Land Oxford: James Currey Thursday 8 March Representation, being & process: a quick introduction to theories of landscape Landscapes are both images and real physical places. It is the space, tension and movement between these two dimensions which makes it a productive analytical concept. This lecture discusses three important approaches to the anthropology of landscape which still inform much contemporary debate today: social constructivist, phenomenological and processual. Key Reading: Hirsch E. 1995 Introduction. Landscape: Between Place & Space in Hirsch & OHanlon 1995 The Anthropology of Landscape Oxford: Oxford University Press Further Reading: Bender 1993 Introduction. Landscape: Meaning & Action & Stonehenge Contested Landscapes in Bender (ed) Landscapes, Politics and Perspectives Oxford: Berg

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Daniels S. & Cosgrove D. 1988 Introduction in Daniels & Cosgrove (ed) The Iconography of Landscape Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Esp. Introduction & selected chapters Ingold 1993 The Temporality of Landscape in World Archaeology 25 (2) 152-74 Tutorial Discussion Monday 12 March How is the nature/culture distinction relevant to the anthropology of landscape? Landscape, Memory & the Past It is often assumed that places and landscapes act as a repository for things from the past, and so can trigger memories that are stored in our minds, much like a computer stores information. This lecture discusses how the anthropologies of landscape and of memory have converged to deliver a much nuanced understanding of the relationship between place and the past. Landscapes do not simply contain the past, or act as triggers for memories stored in our minds, so much as take part in complex, ongoing and always politicised processes of imagining, reproducing, remembering and forgetting. Key Readings: Morphy H. 1995 Landscape and the reproduction of the ancestral past in Hirsch & OHanlon 1995 The Anthropology of Landscape Oxford: Oxford University Press. Basso K. 1988 Speaking with Names: Language and Landscape among the Western Apache in Cultural Anthropology Vol. 3, No. 2 99-130. Further Reading: Stewart P. & Strathern A. 2003 Introduction in Stewart P. & Strathern A. (eds) Landscape, Memory & History: Anthropological perspectives London: Pluto Press Morphy H. 1993 Colonialism, History and the Construction of Place: The Politics of Landscape in Northern Australia in Bender Landscape, Politics & Perspectives Oxford: Berg Fontein, J. 2006 Great Zimbabwe in Local History-scapes in The Silence of Great Zimbabwe: Contested Landscapes and the Power of Heritage London; UCL Press

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Simon Harrison 2004 Forgetful and memorious landscapes in Social Anthropology (2004), 12: 135-151 Thursday 15 March Maps & powerful spaces Not only are landscapes finely interwoven in complex politics of the past, they are also fundamentally entangled in the politics of the present through which the world and movements through it is ordered, constrained and rendered meaningful. This is best illustrated through a consideration of the power of maps. Key Reading: Harley J.B 1988 Maps, Knowledge and Power in Daniels S. & Cosgrove D. 1988 The Iconography of Landscape Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Further Reading: Harley J.B 1992b Rereading the Maps of the Columbian encounter in Annals of the Association of American Geographers 82/3 522-42 Bender B. 1999 Subverting the Western Gaze: Mapping Alternative Worlds in Ucko & Layton 1999 The archaeology and Anthropology of landscape London: Routledge Worby E. 1995 Maps, Names and Ethnic games in Journal of Southern African Studies 20:371-393 Tutorial Discussion Monday 19 March How can landscape embody the past?

Space & Ideology: Public & domestic Just as maps present particular representations of the world even as they constrain our movement and activities within those worlds, other kinds of spaces and places, both public and private, and the objects found there in, too are finely implicated in the work of politics and ideology. This lecture explores the relationship between space, objects and ideology by looking at how the public and domestic architecture became the site of Soviet and Nazi attempts to create particular types of political subjects. Key Reading: Buchli, V. 2002 Architecture and the Domestic sphere in Buchli V. (ed) The Material Culture Reader, Oxford: Berg.

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Macdonald S. 2006 (11) Words in stone? Agency and materiality in a Nazi landscape. in Journal of material culture 2006 (11) Tom Selwyn Landscapes of Separation: Reflections on the Symbolism of By-pass roads in Palestine in Winer & Bender 2001 Contested Landscape: Movement, Exile, Place Harrison, M. 1988. Symbolism, ritualism and the location of crowds in early nineteenth century English Towns in Introduction in Daniels & Cosgrove (ed) The Iconography of Landscape Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thursday 22 March Social life of things If objects can reflect the values, beliefs and politics of a society, they can also be said to have a social life and historicity of their own as they move between different social spaces and contexts. This lecture begins to explore this by looking at the seminal work of Kopytoff, Appadurai and Marcel Mauss. Key Reading: Kopytoff, I. 1986 The Cultural Biography of things: commoditization as process in Appadurai A. (ed) 1986 The Social Life of Things. Cambridge: Cambridge University press Further Reading: Appadurai A. 1980 Introduction: commodities and the politics of value in Appadurai A. (ed) 1986 The Social Life of Things. Cambridge: Cambridge University press Mauss, M. 1954 The Gift. Aberdeen: University press Greary, P. 1986 Sacred Commodities: the circulation of medieval relics in Appadurai A. (ed) 1986 The Social Life of Things. Cambridge: Cambridge University press Tutorial Discussion Monday 26 March how can space be powerful?

Objects & agency Building on the social life of things, more recent anthropology has begun to explore the possibility that objects to can be said to have

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agency, much like human subjects. These new approaches build upon earlier critiques of the Nature /Culture distinction, and explore the way in which subjects and objects, people and things are bound up in mutual relationships which defy common place understandings that differentiate between active and conscious subjects/persons and passive objects/things. Key Reading: Reed, A. Smuk is king: the action of cigarettes in Papua New Guinea prison in Henare, A. Holbraad, M. & S. Wastell, 2007 Thinking Through Things London: Routledge Further Reading: Dant, T. 2005 Agency, affordances and actor-networks in Dant, T. Materiality & Society, Open University Press. Miller, D. 2005 Introduction in Miller, D. (ed) Materiality London: Duke University Press. Gell, A. 1998 Art & Agency: An Anthropological Theory, Oxford University Press. Thursday 29 March Tutorial Discussion Course revision with Dr Neil Thin & Dr Joost Fontein exam preparation