Course Description
We live in a world in which transnational flows of money, images, information and people spawn intense debates about the 'global' impact of commodities and capital on cultural and biological diversity. For some, this is an expression of the advancement of 'modernity' over 'tradition,' characterized by cultural homogenization and the loss of distinctive places. Anthropologists have long resisted such simplistic formulations, however, and sought to document and analyze the subtle and innovative ways that people formulate identities and meanings within the broader political-economic systems that encompass them. This advanced seminar provides you the opportunity to explore the rich body of literature on the complex relationships between culture, globalization and modernity. Thoughout the semester, we will consider the environmental dimensions of these processes, as it is here that the sustainability of political-economic systems and cultures is most problematic.
In the specific topics it addresses, this course has two major objectives. The first is to analyze how shifting concepts and representations of 'culture' are at the center of efforts to understand globalization and transnational economic, political, social and environmental conditions. Reflecting this concern, the first part of this course will explore exemplary efforts to map current global/transnational/modern conditions and the mechanisms by which 'globalization' occurs. The second objective, reflected in the second half of the course, is to examine particular case studies of 'cultural hybridity and 'localization' and the variable ways in which individuals and collectivities have been differentially affected by, responded to, resisted, and/or sought autonomy from increasingly globalized economic and sociopolitical conditions.
During the semester, we will address the following major questions, with the goal of constructing a critical, anthropologically-informed understanding of 'globalization' and 'localization:' what are the prospects for and major outlines of an anthropology of globalization? What are the roles of development, mass media, science, and diasporas in current global/transnational cultural economies and politics? What are the relationships between environmental degradation and the loss or expression of social differences, cultural diversity and/or indigenous rights? What are the cultural politics of transnational environmental activism, 'sustainable development,' and other efforts to 'save nature?' What are the potential and prospects of 'post-development' discourses and grassroots reactive social movements to offer alternatives and autonomy from the socially and ecologically destructive effects of transnational capital and politics?
This course is only loosely tied to 'applied anthropology' and it does not provide a sustained focus on the practical and policy issues in that subfield of anthropology. Rather, the purpose of this course is to encourage you to reflect critically upon debates about 'global' 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. This course does not intend to provide right or wrong answers to the profoundly problematic issues it raises, but through case studies and theoretical consideration, 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 the cultural and environmental aspects of globalization and development.
The following required texts are available for purchase at the University Store:
1. Appadurai, A. (1996) Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. U. Minnesota Press.
2. García-Canclini, N. (1995) Hybrid Cultures: Strategies for Entering and Leaving Modernity. U. Minnesota Press.
3. Tsing, A. (1993) In the Realm of the Diamond Queen: Marginality in an Out-of-the-Way Place. Princeton University Press.
4. Rahnema, M. and V. Bawtree, eds. (1997) The Post-Development Reader. Zed Press.
5. Katzenberger, E., ed. (1995) First World, Ha Ha Ha! The Zapatista Challenge. City Lights.
* Please note that the official course catalogue title for this course is 'Development and Applied Anthropology'