Introduction to Cultural Anthropology

 Course description:
This course seeks to explore how human beings inhabit and interact with their lived world – how
they are shaped by it and in turn shape the multiple forces, flows and relations that constitute their
reality. What insights do we glean from putting the lived experience of people at the center of
theoretical inquiry? What do the everyday practices and experiences of people have to say about
theories of state, gender, politics or economics?
As a discipline cultural anthropology has its roots in the colonial encounter when the desire to
‘know the colonized Other’ gave birth to a cadre of ‘ethnographers’ who ventured into the hearts
of Africa and India and other colonized societies in order to study in detail the strange and
‘primitive’ societies which they now ruled over. This course will invite students to critically engage
with the politics of representation by studying it’s colonial heritage. Recent trends however, have
tried to move beyond this fascination with the ‘traditional’ and ‘non-modern’ societies. Burgeoning
fields such as the anthropology of science and science and technology studies have inverted the
lens, putting the so- called ‘modern’ at the center of the inquiry, indeed calling into question the
very divide between modern/traditional itself. Thus we will also explore the radical and creative
potential of anthropology today.

 Course objectives:

1) To familiarize students with the dominant theoretical and methodological debates in the field of
cultural anthropology.
2) To equip students with basic conceptual skills needed to trace the myriad relations that constitute
their own individual and social contexts.
3) To develop an understanding about how concepts such as caste, colonialism, gender, space, state,
class and the urban operate in empirical reality.
4) To introduce the students to some of the complex ethical issues that are part and parcel of the
research process.

 Key terms: reflexivity – cultural relativism – positivism – representation – functionalism –

culture – genealogy

 Grading instruments:

30% Take home assignments (2)

40% Fieldwork (weekly reflection notes + meetings)
30% Final presentation
Week 1: Introduction
Lecture 1: Introduction
Lecture 2: Brief history
Reading: Nacirema + Bhil tribe
Purpose: Introducing concept of ‘exotic’ ‘underdeveloped’ ‘primitive’ ‘Other’. Who do we ‘other-ise’
in Pakistan? Women, villages and ‘rural areas’, gypsies, fisherfolk, certain areas (Balochistan), Africa
Week 2:
Lecture 3: Bhil tribe video
Purpose: introducing the idea of ‘ethnocentricism’ and ‘representation’. Lead them through the ways bhil
tribe are sophisticated and their knowledge system. The way America can be made to seem ‘exotic’
and ‘backward’ by the way we talk and think about them.
Lecture 4: Walking with Comrades
Concepts: Representation and power
Week 3:
Lecture 5: Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche ‘The dangers of a single story’
Concepts: Representation and power, Ethnocentricism
Week 4 and 5: Economy
Marx: Value – Property – Class
Eriksen: Class (Social Capital etc)
Movie: The Take
Week 6: Globalization and Work
Movie: The Economy of Happyness
Lecture 10: Siddharta Debb: The Beautiful and the Damned
Week 7 & 8: Gender
Lecture 11: Frances E May
Lecture 12: Partha Chatterjee
Lecture 13: Film: 5 Broken Cameras
Week 9: Minorities
Film: La Haine
Guardian article
Week 10&11: Ethnicity
Eriksen Chapter
Oscar Verkaik: MQM Karachi
Week 12 &13 : Presentation