ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE CONTEMPORARY GLOBAL WORLD

This course is offered by the Ca' Foscari School for International Education (SIE). You cannot attend classes or take the final exam unless you are officially enrolled in the course. For more information on SIE's English courses for exchange students, please visit this page: https://www.unive.it/web/en/15331/home

By the end of the course, students will have acquired the basic anthropological knowledge necessary to develop theoretical reflection and an empirical approach to contemporary global phenomena. This course helps students "think and observe anthropologically" by introducing fundamental concepts through the presentation of some of the current debates within the discipline, as well as specific research experiences. Students will also acquire practical skills related to the applicability of anthropological research beyond this specific disciplinary field. The topics discussed during the course will provide students with useful insights for developing informed and responsible research projects.

No special skills are required.

Following an introduction to anthropology that outlines its key trends and debates, we will examine some of the disciplinary subfields that have gained significant momentum in recent years. The course will follow this general outline, but will be open to student requests for in-depth exploration of specific topics:
1) Introduction to contemporary anthropology: The genealogy of a discipline (its origins, the "turns" that have marked its evolution and renovation, current tendencies and overview of the course) with particular attention to how intersectional issues such as gender, race, class and coloniality have shaped the discipline's past and present.
2) Urban anthropology: Bringing ethnography “back home” (the Manchester school, the influence of the Chicago school, overview of current literature), examining how urban spaces are shaped by and reflect gendered, racialised, class-based inequalities and postcolonial legacies. Focus on the ethnographies of the post-socialist city (with a case study from Sarajevo).
3) Anthropology of contemporary migrations: critical border studies beyond “the national order of things”, towards a critique of the humanitarian reason.
4) Anthropology of development: critical aspects, post-development and alternatives to development, interrogating how development discourses and practices have historically been intertwined with colonial power structures, and how they continue to shape inequalities along lines of ethnicity, gender, and class.
5) Anthropology of the Anthropocene: ecologies, environment, and climate change.
6) Visual anthropology: Working with images in the field and beyond. Interdisciplinary encounters between art and research.
7) The sensory/affective turn: embodiment, senses, emotions, and affect as central to social life and ethnographic experience.
8) The material turn: the agency, significance, and active role of materials, objects, technologies, and the physical environment in shaping social life, culture, and human experience.
9) The digital turn: The impact of digital technologies on the discipline, encompassing shifts in research methods, theoretical frameworks, and the very subject matter of anthropological inquiry.
10) Anthropology of future worlds: Speculative approaches, emerging technologies and possible futures beyond the human.

PowerPoint presentations provided by the instructor.
Basic starting texts:
J. Monaghan and P. Just (2000), Social and Cultural Anthropology. A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press
S. Ortner (1984), Theory in Anthropology since the Sixties. Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Jan., 1984), pp. 126-166
S. Ortner (2016), Dark Anthropology and its Others. Theory since the Eighties. Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 6 (1): 47–73
L. Abu-Lughod (1991), Writing against Culture. In R. G. Fox (ed.), Recapturing Anthropology: Working in the Present. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press, pp. 137-54, 161-2

A further selection of readings will be made available via the Moodle platform: https://moodle.unive.it/course/view.php?id=24529

Students will be assessed on classroom participation (discussions and periodic presentations of readings) and on a final exam (a project proposal to be discussed orally with the instructor).

oral

A score below 18 is considered insufficient. The final grade will be calculated based on class participation (33%), the quality of the written paper (33%), and the oral discussion during the exam (33%).

The course will be structured around in-class lectures, encouraging students’ active participation through group discussions.

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