1 - 10 of 41 results for: ANTHRO

What does it mean to be a Native American in the 21st century? Beyond traditional portrayals of military conquests, cultural collapse, and assimilation, the relationships between Native Americans and American society. Focus is on three themes leading to in-class moot court trials: colonial encounters and colonizing discourses; frontiers and boundaries; and sovereignty of self and nation. Topics include gender in native communities, American Indian law, readings by native authors, and Indians in film and popular culture.

In recent decades genes have increasingly become endowed with the cultural power to explain many aspects of human life: physical traits, diseases, behaviors, ancestral histories, and identity. In this course we will explore a deepening societal intrigue with genetic accounts of personal identity and political meaning. Students will engage with varied interdisciplinary sources that range from legal cases to scientific articles, medical ethics guidelines, films, and anthropological works (ethnographies). We will explore several case studies where the use of DNA markers (as proof of heritage, disease risk, or legal standing) has spawned cultural movements that are biosocial in nature. Throughout we will look at how new social movements are organized around gene-based definitions of personhood, health, and legal truth. Several examples include political analyses of citizenship and belonging. On this count we will discuss issues of African ancestry testing as evidence in slavery reparations cases, revisit debates on whether Black Freedman should be allowed into the Cherokee and Seminole Nations, and hear arguments on whether people with genetic links to Jewish groups should have a right of return to Israel. We will also examine the ways genetic knowledge may shape different health politics at the individual and societal level. On this count we will do close readings of how personal genomics testing companies operate, we will investigate how health disparities funding as well as orphan disease research take on new valences when re-framed in genetic terms, and we will see how new articulations of global health priorities are emerging through genetic research in places like Africa. Finally we will explore social implications of forensic uses of DNA. Here we will examine civil liberties concerns about genetic familial searching in forensic databases that disproportionately target specific minority groups as criminal suspects, and inquire into the use of DNA to generate digital mugshots of suspects that re-introduce genetic concepts of race.

What does archaeology have to say about human rights? Is there a right to cultural heritage? How can archaeology and heritage help protect rights¿or encroach upon them? Themes we will address in this course include the archaeological investigation of human rights topics; the right to heritage; conflicts of different rights regimes in heritage contexts; and ethical considerations about rights during research and heritage management. These questions will take us to cases as diverse as forensic investigation of the disappeared in Argentina, the archaeology of homelessness in the U.K., the destruction of heritage as cultural genocide in Bosnia and the Middle East, and the rights of indigenous groups in Australia and the U.S. to control cultural heritage.

For Anthropology majors only; non-majors register for 93B. Preparation for anthropological field research in other societies and the U.S. Data collection techniques include participant observation, interviewing, surveys, sampling procedures, life histories, ethnohistory, and the use of documentary materials. Strategies of successful entry into the community, research ethics, interpersonal dynamics, and the reflexive aspects of fieldwork. Prerequisites: two ANTHRO courses or consent of instructor.

Preparation for anthropological field research in other societies and the U.S. Data collection techniques include participant observation, interviewing, surveys, sampling procedures, life histories, ethnohistory, and the use of documentary materials. Strategies for successful entry into the community, research ethics, interpersonal dynamics, and the reflexive aspects of fieldwork. Service Learning Course (certified by Haas Center).

Independent research conducted under faculty supervision, normally taken junior or senior year in pursuit of a senior paper or an honors project. May be repeated for credit.