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131 - 140 of 427 results for: ANTHRO

ANTHRO 137: The Politics of Humanitarianism (ANTHRO 237)

What does it mean to want to help, to organize humanitarian aid, in times of crisis? At first glance, the impulse to help issue generis a good one. Helping is surely preferable to indifference and inaction. This does not mean that humanitarian interventions entail no ethical or political stakes or that they are beyond engaged critique. We need to critique precisely that which we value, and to ask some hard questions, among them these: What are the differences among humanitarianism, charity, and philanthropy? What of social obligations and solidarities? How does the neoliberal world order currently create structural inequalities that ensure the reproduction of poverty and violence? How does the current order of things resemble or differ from the colonial world order? This course examines the history of humanitarian sensibilities and the emergence of organized action in the 'cause of humanity'. In the early years of humanitarian intervention, political neutrality was a key principle; it has now come under ever greater analytical and political scrutiny. We will examine the reasons for the politicization and militarization of aid -- be it humanitarian aid in natural disasters or political crises; development programs in the impoverished south ('the Third World'), or peace-keeping. We will end with a critical exploration of the concept of human rights, humanity, and personhood. The overall methodological aim of the course is to demonstrate what insights an ethnographic approach to the politics, ethics, and aesthetics of humanitarianism can offer.
Last offered: Spring 2011

ANTHRO 137A: Traditional Medicine in the Modern World

This class considers "traditional medicine" in contemporary times. We will survey major systems of traditional medicine while considering their broader social, cultural, and political contexts. The class will study the symbolic uses of traditional medicine, the role of traditional medicines in early modern medical knowledge, the place of indigenous knowledge in bioprospecting, health-seeking behavior and medical pluralism, and the WHO's approach to traditional medicine and how it has affected government health policies. The class emphasizes a critical approach to the concepts of tradition and modernity, and an understanding of traditional medicine as a changing, flexible, and globalized category of healing.

ANTHRO 138: Medical Ethics in a Global World: Examining Race, Difference and Power in the Research Enterprise (ANTHRO 238, CSRE 138)

This course will explore historical as well as current market transformations of medical ethics in different global contexts. We will examine various aspects of the research enterprise, its knowledge-generating and life-saving goals, as well as the societal, cultural, and political influences that make medical research a site of brokering in need of oversight and emergent ethics.nThis seminar will provide students with tools to explore and critically assess the various technical, social, and ethical positions of researchers, as well as the role of the state, the media, and certain publics in shaping scientific research agendas. We will also examine how structural violence, poverty, global standing, and issues of citizenship also influence issues of consent and just science and medicine.
Terms: Aut | Units: 5 | UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-ER

ANTHRO 138A: Conflict and Reconciliation in Africa: International Intervention (AFRICAST 138, AFRICAST 238, ANTHRO 238A)

This course will explore recent debates on the causes and structural terms of large-scale violence in Africa in the context of key contemporary models for reconciliation and transitional justice. Discussions will emphasize the broader international legal and political order each presupposes, and specifically whether their underlying reconstitution of rights and subjectivities are compatible with cultural, political or legal diversity. A historical assessment of the predominating Nuremberg paradigm of transitional justice¿structured around international military intervention and criminal trials based on international criminal courts¿will be contrasted with other regional models that engage with the challenges of the political reconciliation of formerly divided political communities. The necessity of understanding the specificities of both global and local historical and structural contexts will be examined with respect to various proposals for how to balance of balance concerns for both justice and peace. Readings will cover case studies from South Africa, Rwanda, DRC, northern Uganda, Sudan (including Darfur and South Sudan), Libya, Mali, and CAR.
Last offered: Summer 2014

ANTHRO 138B: Urban Africa (AFRICAST 138B, URBANST 139)

This course explores the production of urban space and the social, cultural, and political significance of cities in sub-Saharan Africa. Topics include: architecture and the built environment; urban planning and colonial public health; migration and rural-urban dynamics; youth, politics, and popular culture; violence, policing, and the privatization of public space; (in)formality in housing, transportation, and employment; class, gender, and mobility in the public sphere; urban citizenship and `right to the city¿ movements; gentrification, tourism, and the commodification of poverty; and efforts to (re)theorize postcolonial African cities. Readings are drawn from anthropology, history, urban studies, and geography. Discussion will situate struggles over urban forms and the contours of everyday life within broader trends in the political economy of the region from the late colonial period to the present.
Last offered: Spring 2015

ANTHRO 139: Ethnography of Africa (ANTHRO 239)

The politics of producing knowledge in and about Africa through the genre of ethnography, from the colonial era to the present. The politics of writing and the ethics of social imagination. Sources include novels juxtaposed to ethnographies.
Last offered: Winter 2014 | UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci

ANTHRO 139A: Forgotten Africa: An Introduction to the Archaeology of Africa (AFRICAST 139A, ARCHLGY 139A)

This course provides an introductory survey of Africa¿s past from prehistoric times through the 19th-century. The course will challenge Western depictions of Africa as a dark continent `without history¿ by highlighting the continent¿s vibrant cultures, sophisticated technologies, complex political systems and participation in far-reaching commercial networks, all predating European colonization. In tandem, the course explores how these histories are mobilized in the production of negative ideas about Africa in contemporary discourse.
Last offered: Spring 2014

ANTHRO 140: Ethnography of Africa

This course is an exploration of some central themes and issues in contemporary African society through close readings of a selection of recent ethnographies. It aims to understand Africa as a place where many of the most challenging issues of a modern, globalized world are being thought about in exciting and creative ways, both by ethnographers and by the people about whom they write. Among the key issues that the course seeks to address are: the history and politics of colonial domination; the ways that medicine and government intersect; the increasing use of humanitarian frames of reference in understanding African realities; the changing meanings of HIV/AIDS, sex, and love; and the role of mass media in enabling cultural and imaginative production to take form.
Terms: Aut | Units: 3

ANTHRO 140A: Ethnographic Archaeologies (ANTHRO 240A, ARCHLGY 137)

How have ethnographic and archaeological methods been combined in anthropological research? What methodological and theoretical implications do these kinds of projects generate? Seminar topics will include ethnoarchaeology, ethnographies of archaeological practice, public archaeology and heritage ethics. Lecture and discussion.

ANTHRO 141A: Science, Technology, and Medicine in Africa (AFRICAST 141A)

Africa is often depicted as a place simply in need of science, technology, andnmedicine. This class will introduce students to the culture and politics of science innsub-Saharan Africa: to the diverse and rich traditions, histories and contemporarynpredicaments of knowledge practices on the continent. We will consider the rolenof science in the colonial period, covering the expansion of European empires intonAfrica and the forms of technical knowledge that colonial governments encountered, especially as they relate to health and the environment. We will examine the role of science at African independence and in international development work. Finally, we will discuss the techno-politics of medical training and research, resource extraction, and the internet in contemporary Africa. This course will provide some important background for those with an applied interest in Africa as well as provide an introduction to a growing area of scholarship. Course materials include historical and ethnographic works, as well as primary sources and films emphasizing scientific practice in the context of geopolitical relations of power and inequality.
Last offered: Autumn 2013
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