This module is about attempts to radically transform the world. Across social and cultural contexts, there have always been people who reject the status quo, and people who want things to be different. And across anthropology's history, there have always been anthropologists interested in understanding that 'impulse to act' – and, indeed, interested in acting themselves. In exploring anthropologies of activism, and anthropologists' relationship to activism, we will ask the following questions: What is activism, and what is it not? Who are activists, and how do they engage with the world? Can anthropologists be activists? Across a range of ethnographic contexts, we will investigate different forms of political action (which may include revolutionary insurgency, NGO work, everyday resistance), key concerns in the literature (which may include agency, subjectivity, temporality, forms of organisation and association, emotions and affect), and our relationship as anthropologists to our own activism and to that of our interlocutors.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the module students should be able to:
Evaluate theories and concepts used in the anthropology of activism.
Assess how anthropology has related to attempts to change the world.
Demonstrate familiarity with ethnographic examples of transformative and intentional action.
Evaluate the role of anthropologists in attempts to change the world.
Assessment
39836-01 : 1500 word written assignment - Essay 1 : Coursework (40%)
39836-02 : 2000 word written assignment - (Essay 2) : Coursework (60%)