Course Description
Socio-cultural anthropologists have long been involved in efforts to 'develop the Third World,' and at the same time been vigorous critics of the intellectual, institutional, political and ethical foundations of these processes. This course introduces you to anthropological approaches to 'development in the Third World' from multiple perspectives, and provides you with several opportunities to experience through simulation the complexities of working in development. In this sense, this course has elements of both 'development anthropology' (practice through the eyes of the development anthropologist) and 'anthropology of development' (viewing development as an object of anthropological study). We will spend considerable time working through this course's major conceptual issues in the context of specific socio-historical case studies of the prospects and effects of development for certain 'Third World' and indigenous peoples.
Throughout the semester, we will consider the following issues, with a goal of constructing a critical and humanist anthropology of development. What are the socio-historical and philosophical roots of development theory and practice? What is the significance of the concept 'Third World,' and how has it made visible certain kinds of problems that warrant 'First World' intervention? What different interests, institutions, governments and knowledges are involved in defining development problems and solutions? What and who are ignored in these processes, and at what cost? What role have anthropologists played in development processes, and what are the challenges and opportunities for anthropologists working in development? How have development theory and practice related to issues like health, gender, population, and environment? What are political-economic origins - and the socio-cultural and ecological effects - of hydro-development projects, desertification, and development as ethnic homogenization/ethnocide? What does 'sustainable development' mean and who has a stake in it? What forms of resistance to development exist, and what do critics mean when they write about a 'post-development era?'
While this course does have experiential components and we will discuss in detail what anthropology has to offer Third World development processes, the purpose of this course is not to prepare students to be development practitioners or provide policy solutions to development problems. Rather, the purpose of this course is to encourage you to reflect critically upon globalized processes and structures of inequality and dependence, the construction and implementation of 'expert' knowledge in institutional and transnational contexts, and complicated processes of social transformation in cross-cultural contexts. In other words, this course does not intend to provide right or wrong answers to the profoundly problematic issues it raises, but through case studies, to introduce and critically analyze alternatives to solutions that have already been posed. What you choose to do with these analyses and knowledge is up to you - the purpose of this course is to help you identify and refine your critical take on the major issues related to international development and anthropology.
The following books are available for purchase at the University Store:
1. Dentan, et. al. (1997) Malaysia and the Original People: A Case Study of the Impact of Development on Indigenous People. Allyn and Bacon.
2. Fratkin, E. (1998) Ariaal Pastoralists of Kenya: Surviving Drought and Development in Africa's Arid Lands. Allyn and Bacon.
3. Gardner, K. and D. Lewis. (1996) Anthropology, Development and the Post-Modern Challenge. Pluto Press.
4. Niezen, R. (1998) Defending the Land: Sovereignty and Forest Life among the James Bay Cree. Allyn and Bacon.
5. Rapley, J. (1996) Understanding Development: Theory and Practice in the Third World. Lynne Reiner.
6. Robbins, R. (1999) Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism. Allyn and Bacon.
7. Robertson, A.F. (1995) The Big Catch: A Practical Introduction to Development. Westview Press.