ETHNOLOGY

The course is taught in English, awards 6 credits and is open to all the interested students from any master's degree programme at Ca' Foscari. It is optional for all the programmes of the master's degree in "Cultural Anthropology, Ethnology and Ethnolinguistics" (ACEL) and for the students of the master's degree in "History from the Middle Ages to the Contemporary Age".

This intensive five-week Master’s course examines gender and sexuality through the lens of ethnography. It approaches sexuality not as a bounded domain of identity politics, but as a field through which power, morality, kinship, economy, religion, embodiment, and citizenship are negotiated across cultural contexts.
The course approaches debates on gender and sexuality as arising from interconnected global processes, drawing comparatively on ethnographic research from Africa, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and the Americas. African scholarship, in particular, is engaged as theoretically productive and dialogical, playing a key role in rethinking colonialism, moral regulation, intimacy, and rights alongside work produced in other parts of the world.
Students will develop the capacity to critically synthesise theoretical paradigms in gender and sexuality studies; compare ethnographic materials across world regions; analyse how sexuality becomes embedded in governance, religion, and economic transformation; and design theoretically informed research projects. The course underscores analytical depth, comparative reasoning, and conceptual precision.

Although no particular prerequisites are required, it is advisable that students hold a basic knowledge of the main theoretical approaches and research methods characterizing Social and Cultural Anthropology. Students enrolled in environmental studies programmes who wish to be introduced to anthropological perspectives, particularly those emerging from ethnographies of lowland South America and Oceanic/Southeast Asia, are also welcome.

Part I: Historicities of Gender and Sexual Regulation
The opening sessions situate gender and sexuality within longer histories of governance. We begin by revisiting foundational theories of biopower and the production of sexual subjects, before moving into colonial and postcolonial contexts. Students examine how colonial administrations codified gender hierarchies and sexual norms in Africa and Asia, and how these interventions reshaped existing systems of kinship and authority.
The course then turns to global health governance, development frameworks, and international human rights regimes. Rather than assuming a simple diffusion of “Western” sexual modernity, we analyse the uneven circulation of concepts such as rights, consent, protection, and empowerment.
Recent scholarship helps us interrogate how race, empire, and global inequality continue to structure whose sexualities are seen as modern, backwards, liberated, or dangerous.

Part II: Embodiment, Intimacy and Everyday Economies
The second movement shifts from governance to lived experience. Sexuality here is approached as embodied practice shaped by material conditions, religion, generational change, and urban transformation. The focus expands beyond identity categories to consider masculinity, femininity, youth intimacy, marriage, transactional sex, and reproductive politics.
Ethnographic case studies from Kenya, South Africa, Ghana, India, Brazil, Indonesia, and several European settings are examined in relation to one another, with attention to how migration, precarious labor, urban transformation, and demographic change shape intimate life across these contexts. Africanist scholarship plays a central role in theorizing intimacy and economic exchange, particularly in relation to love, aspiration, and inequality.
Recent research on pandemic governance, digital intimacy, and reproductive politics allows us to connect classical ethnographic concerns with emerging global transformations.

Part III: Religion, Rights, Morality and the Politics of Knowledge
The final section examines sexuality as a condensed site through which religion, nationalism, populism, and global governance converge. Across Africa, Latin America, South Asia, and Europe, debates around reproduction, family, education, and morality have become central to projects of political legitimacy and cultural sovereignty. Sexuality operates here not only as social practice but as a symbolic marker of authenticity, crisis, or decline.
This unit then turns reflexively to the politics of rights and knowledge. Rather than treating rights discourse as neutral or universally emancipatory, students examine how sexual rights circulate through humanitarian, development, and academic frameworks that are themselves shaped by histories of empire and inequality. Global South scholars interrogate how categories such as “protection,” “empowerment,” and “liberation” travel unevenly and sometimes reproduce hierarchies of authority.
The course concludes by reflecting on theory production itself. Students are invited to reconsider how sexuality becomes an object of knowledge, whose conceptual vocabularies dominate global debates, and how African and other Global South feminist thinkers intervene epistemologically. This closing section synthesizes governance, embodiment, and moral politics while foregrounding the question of who defines the terms of sexual justice.

Part I
FOUCAULT, Michel. 1978. The History of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction. New York: Pantheon Books.
EPPRECHT, Marc. 2013. Sexuality and Social Justice in Africa. London: Zed Books.
RAO, Rahul. 2020. Out of Time: The Queer Politics of Postcoloniality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
TAMALE, Sylvia (ed.). 2020. Decolonization and Afro-Feminism. Ottawa: Daraja Press.
MANUEL, Sandra. 2009. “Presentes perigosos: Dinâmicas de risco de infecção por HIV e SIDA nos relacionamentos de namoro na cidade de Maputo”. Physis: Revista de Saúde Coletiva, 19(2): 371–386.
KHOJA-MOOLJI, Shenila. 2021. “Death by Benevolence: Third World Girls and the Contemporary Politics of Humanitarianism”. Gender & Society, 35(3): 335–357.
BACCHETTA, Paola; Elora Chowdhury; Lalaie Ameeriar; and Manu Vimalassery. 2021. “Gender and Sexuality in the Time of COVID-19: Introduction”. Gender & Society, 35(5): 679–686.

Part II
HUNTER, Mark. 2010. Love in the Time of AIDS: Inequality, Gender, and Rights in South Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
SPRONK, Rachel. 2012. Ambiguous Pleasures: Sexuality and Middle-Class Self-Perceptions in Nairobi. New York: Berghahn Books.
HIRSCH, Jennifer S. and Holly WARDLOW (eds.). 2020. The Secret: Love, Marriage, and HIV. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.
RATELE, Kopano. 2013. “Masculinities Without Tradition.” Politikon: South African Journal of Political Studies, 40(1): 133–156.
ROFEL, Lisa. 2007. Desiring China: Experiments in Neoliberalism, Sexuality, and Public Culture. Durham: Duke University Press.
ARNFRED, Signe. 2021. “Sexuality, Power and Knowledge in Contemporary Africa.” Feminist Africa, 27: 11–32.

Part III
KUHAR, Roman and David PATERNOTTE (eds.). 2017. Anti-Gender Campaigns in Europe: Mobilizing against Equality. London: Rowman & Littlefield International.
VAN KLINKEN, Adriaan and Ezra CHITANDO (eds.). 2016. Public Religion and the Politics of Homosexuality in Africa. London: Routledge.
CORRÊA, Sonia. 2022. “Anti-Gender Politics as Global Phenomenon.” Global Public Health, 17(6): 1041–1053.
FASSIN, Didier. 2012. Humanitarian Reason: A Moral History of the Present. Berkeley: University of California Press.
RUTAZIBWA, Olivia U. 2021. “Decolonising Sexual Rights: Rethinking the Politics of Protection.” Third World Quarterly, 42(7): 1453–1469.
MAMA, Amina. 2020. “African Feminism in a Time of Crisis.” Feminist Africa, 27: 1–10.
TAMALE, Sylvia. 2011. “Researching and Theorising Sexualities in Africa.” In African Sexualities: A Reader. Cape Town: Pambazuka Press.
MANUEL, Sandra and Emídio GUNE. 2007. “Doing Research on Sexuality in Africa: Ethical Dilemmas and the Positioning of the Researcher.” OSSREA Bulletin, IV(2): 23–32. NYANZI, Stella. 2021. “Sexual Citizenship and African Moral Politics.” African Affairs, 120(480): 123–144.

Attendance is recommended for students wishing to engage deeply with the course topics. It is not compulsory but strongly advised. Students should attend classes regularly and actively participate by contributing to discussions on the topics covered. To be considered an attending student, one must give a presentation of a text during a class and participate consistently in the weekly debate sessions. Evaluation will be based on these contributions as well as a final essay using the literature cited in this syllabus and other references provided for the course (or upon request). The essay must be submitted three days before the examination. It should not exceed 5000 words (excluding bibliography but including footnotes). Non-attending students will be required to write two essays instead of one.

written

17 FAIL
18-20 PASS
Limited comprehension of notions, limited skill of exposition and reflection, no critical capacity
21-23 SATISFACTORY
Sufficient comprehension of notions presented in an unclear and reflexive manner; difficulties in elaborating, and synthesizing ideas
24-26 GOOD
Good comprehension of notions but limited capacity of exposition, reflection, and synthesis
27-28 VERY GOOD
In-depth comprehension of notions that are presented in a clear and articulated manner; remarkable synthesizing capacity and critical reflection
29-30 VERY GOOD
Broad and in-depth comprehension of notions that are presented in an articulated and sophisticated manner. Excellent ability in exposing ideas synthetically, and critical ability
30 CUM LAUDE EXCELLENT
Broad and in-depth comprehension of notions showing an advanced knowledge of broader disciplinary and interdisciplinary debates, a mastery of academic language, and a capacity for original and critical thinking

Given the compressed five-week format, each week combines one lecture-oriented session and one seminar discussion or group presentation. Students are expected to complete all readings in advance and actively contribute to discussion. Comparative analytical engagement across regions is central.

The lecturer receives students in his study, upon appointment to be previously arranged by email.

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Poverty and inequalities" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development