Spring 2019  |  ANTH 4031W Section 001: Anthropology and Social Justice (55690)

Instructor(s)
Class Component:
Discussion
Credits:
4 Credits
Grading Basis:
Student Option
Instructor Consent:
No Special Consent Required
Instruction Mode:
In Person Term Based
Class Attributes:
Community Engaged Learning
UMNTC Liberal Education Requirement
Times and Locations:
Regular Academic Session
 
01/22/2019 - 05/06/2019
Tue, Thu 01:00PM - 02:15PM
UMTC, West Bank
Blegen Hall 210
Enrollment Status:
Closed (11 of 15 seats filled)
Course Catalog Description:
Practical application of theories/methods from social/cultural anthropology. Issues of policy, planning, implementation, and ethics as they relate to applied anthropology. prereq: 1003 or 1005 or 4003 or grad student or instr consent
Class Notes:
For more information visit: http://classinfo.umn.edu/?valen076+ANTH4031W+Spring2018 research component, service learning, ethnography, small group work, politics, environmental justice, homelessness, HIV/AIDS
Class Description:
What are the possibilities and pitfalls of an anthropological perspective in public policy and social justice work? Anthropology has long been associated with an ethos of advocacy and activism, but anthropological analyses are not always welcomed by policy makers or, sometimes, by the very people anthropologists claim to want to help, raising a host of ethical, theoretical, and methodological issues. This seminar will look both at anthropologists' attempts to marry ethnography, advocacy, social justice, and ethical action, but also consider some of the darker moments of anthropology's history. The focus will be on diverse social justice movements and issues in the U.S. and globally in the context of U.S.-dominated globalization. We will consider how social differences are implicated in larger political, economic and social injustices, and how we as anthropologists might respond effectively and ethically to these injustices. Some of the topics we will explore include: labor, globalization, development and the legacies of colonialism; human rights; environmentalism and environmental disasters; problems of studying the powerful; housing and homelessness; and ethical debates within anthropology. We will use these topics to discuss a series of questions: what are the relations of social power that pertain in ethnographic encounters? What are anthropologists' ethical responsibilities when their views of what is "right" clashes with those of their study participants? Who reads what an anthropologist writes, and who has rights over what is read? How does one write ethnography so that it is effective in public policy and social justice work? How is ethnographic data actually used or misused in public policy debates and social justice work? Is it possible to define "social justice" or "human rights" cross-culturally? How does an anthropologist use her/his data to aid her/his study participants -- and is that aid always welcome? As well as an emphasis on cultural, social, political, and economic differences, this class thus also requires students to think about (and directly engage in the practice of) ethics and citizenship. We will discuss both cases from anthropology and students' own experiences which demonstrate the fine line between holding firm ethical positions while also recognizing that very often ethics and the practice of engaged citizenship is contextual and needs to account for competing positions. This 4 credit course includes a service learning component in which students will be expected to do ethnographic research in a grassroots, community, or social justice setting, for 4-6 hours a week for ten weeks over the course of the semester. A key part of the course will be training students in ethnographic research methods, interview methods, and qualitative data analysis so that students will have a useable skill upon leaving the class. The data from this research will form the basis for students' final papers.
Grading:
80% Reports/Papers
20% Class Participation
Exam Format:
There are no exams for this class. All graded work is take home.
Class Format:
10% Lecture
70% Discussion
15% Small Group Activities
5% Student Presentations
Workload:
The class entails a service-learning component (10 weeks) which will also form the basis for the collection of ethnographic data for the production of a final research paper. There are two additional 5 page analytic papers that will be written in response to a paper prompt. Weekly reading amounts to 4-5 chapters or articles a week.
Textbooks:
https://bookstores.umn.edu/course-lookup/55690/1193
Instructor Supplied Information Last Updated:
30 October 2015

ClassInfo Links - Spring 2019 Anthropology Classes

To link directly to this ClassInfo page from your website or to save it as a bookmark, use:
http://classinfo.umn.edu/?subject=ANTH&catalog_nbr=4031W&term=1193
To see a URL-only list for use in the Faculty Center URL fields, use:
http://classinfo.umn.edu/?subject=ANTH&catalog_nbr=4031W&term=1193&url=1
To see this page output as XML, use:
http://classinfo.umn.edu/?subject=ANTH&catalog_nbr=4031W&term=1193&xml=1
To see this page output as JSON, use:
http://classinfo.umn.edu/?subject=ANTH&catalog_nbr=4031W&term=1193&json=1
To see this page output as CSV, use:
http://classinfo.umn.edu/?subject=ANTH&catalog_nbr=4031W&term=1193&csv=1
Schedule Viewer
8 am
9 am
10 am
11 am
12 pm
1 pm
2 pm
3 pm
4 pm
5 pm
6 pm
7 pm
8 pm
9 pm
10 pm
s
m
t
w
t
f
s
?
Class Title