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 |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | 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. |
| Course description |
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
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
|
Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
|
| Academic year 2015/16, Available to all students (SV1)
|
Quota: 35 |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 10,
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 10,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
176 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
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%. |
| Feedback |
Not entered |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- show a clear understanding of the importance and scope of anthropology's contribution to the analysis of power and politics
- 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.
- identify and characterise key approaches from social anthropology, from other social science disciplines, and from interdisciplinary fields like cultural studies, development studies, and science and technology studies to understanding and evaluating issues concerning political anthropology as a sub-field, and identify advantages, problems and implications of these approaches.
- critically evaluate contributions to the academic and public debates regarding political issues in scientific, philosophical, and humanities-related inquiries in order to engage wider audiences regarding issues of human social and cultural difference
- identify and evaluate a selection of techniques and procedures used in political anthropology and their relation to the formal techniques and procedures of anthropology and the social sciences generally.
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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. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Richard Baxstrom
Tel:
Email: |
Course secretary | Ms Jessica Barton
Tel: (0131 6)51 1659
Email: |
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