Postgraduate Course: Culture and Power: The Anthropology of Political Processes (PGSP11178)
Course Outline
| School | School of Social and Political Science |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Course type | Standard |
Availability | Available to all students |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Credits | 20 |
| Home subject area | Postgrad (School of Social and Political Studies) |
Other subject area | None |
| Course website |
None |
Taught in Gaelic? | No |
| Course description | This course introduces a range of anthropological approaches to politics. It provides a detailed examination of both open and hidden forms of power and their workings at the global, state, national, community, and personal level. Key themes of this course are:
bureaucracy and irrationality in the modern state, sovereignty, political violence, colonialism and post-colonialism, kingship, non-governmental politics, biopower, religion and neo-liberalism. |
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
|
Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
| Additional Costs | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| Displayed in Visiting Students Prospectus? | Yes |
Course Delivery Information
|
| Delivery period: 2013/14 Semester 1, Available to all students (SV1)
|
Learn enabled: Yes |
Quota: None |
Web Timetable |
Web Timetable |
| Course Start Date |
16/09/2013 |
| Breakdown of Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 20,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
176 )
|
| Additional Notes |
|
| Breakdown of Assessment Methods (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
|
| No Exam Information |
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
| By the end of the course, the students should have a clear understanding of the importance and scope of anthropology's contribution to the analysis of power and politics. They will be able to take an informed, anthropological perspective on issues of governance, citizenship, processes of democratization, protest, and the role of the state in a variety of ethnographic contexts. |
Assessment Information
| Assessment will be through (i) a short Mid-Term essay (1000 words); and (ii) A long essay (3000 words) at the end of the Semester. The Mid-term Essay carries a weighting of 20% towards the final overall mark for the course as a whole, and the long essay carries a weighting of 80%. |
Special Arrangements
| None |
Additional Information
| Academic description |
Not entered |
| Syllabus |
Week 1 INTRODUCTION TO THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF POLITICS
Week 2 SOVEREIGNTY AND THE STATE
Week 3 NATIONALISM: CONTESTED HISTORIES, PRESENTS AND FUTURES
Week 4 COLONIALISM AND POSTCOLONIALISM
Week 5 KINGSHIP AND ROYAL RITUAL
Week 6 POLITICAL VIOLENCE AND POSTCONFLICT POLITICS
Week 7 RELIGION AND SECULARISM
Week 8 NONGOVERNMENTAL POLITICS
Week 9 BIOPOWER: THE POLITICS OF LIFE AND DEATH
Week 10 NEOLIBERALISM |
| Transferable skills |
Not entered |
| Reading list |
Beles, M. 1988. Modern political ritual: Ethnography of an inauguration and a
pilgrimage by President Mitterrand. Current Anthropology 29(3): 391-404.
Bourgois, P. 2001. The Power of Violence in War and Peace: Post-Cold War Lessons from El Salvador. Ethnography 2(1) 5-34
Dirks, N. 1992. Castes of Mind. Representations 37: 56-78.
Evans-Pritchard, E.E. 1969 [1940]. The Nuer: A description of the modes of livelihood and political institutions of a Nilotic People. Oxford & New
York: Oxford University Press. Pp. 94-95; 135-138; 225-226.
Farquar, J. & Q. Zhang 2005. Biopolitical Beijing: Pleasure, Sovereignty, and Self- Cultivation in China's Capital. Cultural Anthropology 20(3): 303-327.
Gupta, A. 1995. Blurred Boundaries: The Discourse of Corruption, the Culture of Politics, and the Imagined State. American Ethnologist 22(2): 375-402.
Hansen, T. B. 2005. Sovereigns beyond the State: Authority and Legality in Urban India. In T.B. Hansen and F. Stepputat (eds.). Sovereign Bodies. Citizens, Migrants and States in the Postcolonial World.
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Kipnis, Andrew B. 2007. Neoliberalism reiżed: suzhi discourse and tropes of neoliberalism in the People's Republic of China. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 13:383-400.
Navaro-Yashin, Yael. 2002. Faces of the state: secularism and public life in Turkey. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Pp. 188- 204.
Schuller, Mark. 2007. Seeing Like a Failed NGO: Globalization's Impacts on State and Civil Society in Haiti. PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 30(1): 67-89.
Spencer, J. 1990. Writing Within: Anthropology, Nationalism and Culture in Sri Lanka. Current Anthropology 3(2): 283-300.
Stoler, A. 1989. Making Empire Respectable: The Politics of Race and Sexual Morality in 20th Century Colonial Cultures. American Ethnologist
16(4): 26-51. |
| Study Abroad |
Not entered |
| Study Pattern |
10 x 2 hour lectures
9 x 50 minute tutorials |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Tobias Kelly
Tel: (0131 6)50 3986
Email: toby.kelly@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Ms Jessica Barton
Tel: (0131 6)51 1659
Email: Jessica.Barton@ed.ac.uk |
|
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