Module ANTH44115: Interrogating Ethnography

Department: Anthropology

ANTH44115: Interrogating Ethnography

Tied To

• L6K307: Research Methods (Anthropology)
• L6K507: Medical Anthropology
• L6K607: Sustainability, Culture and Development

Pre-requisites

Corequisites

Excluded Combinations

Aims

• To understand the workings of ethnographic writing and ethnographic argument through detailed engagement with four book-length monographs.
• Enable students to develop the specific critical and theoretical skills required to unpack others’ (and construct their own) ethnographic accounts.
• To engage closely with and think comparatively across, four instances of sophisticated anthropological work.
• To explore the practical, epistemic and methodological aspects of ethnography as the distinctive method of socio-cultural anthropology

Content

• One of the most distinctive aspects of anthropology as a discipline is the way in which theoretical arguments are articulated through detailed, in-depth ethnographic accounts of particular places. In an intellectual environment increasingly marked by fragmentation of arguments into article-length 'hits', the book-length ethnographic monograph may seem a strange and unwieldy format, but it makes space for a distinctive type of theoretical argument to emerge at a very different pace. Mastering the ethnographic monograph is thus key to understanding what is anthropological about anthropological theory
• Ethnographies examined in previous years have been (these may change from time to time: o Reed, A.D.E. 2003. Papua New Guinea's last place : experiences of constraint in a postcolonial prison. New York: Berghahn Books. o Willerslev, R. 2007. Soul hunters : hunting, animism, and personhood among the Siberian Yukaghirs. Berkeley: University of California Press. o Hirschkind, C. 2006. The ethical soundscape : cassette sermons and Islamic counterpublics. New York: Columbia University Press. o Helmreich, S. 2009. Alien ocean : anthropological voyages in microbial seas. Berkeley: University of California Press. o Candea, M. 2010. Corsican Fragments: Difference, knowledge and fieldwork. Bloomington, Indiana University Press.

Learning Outcomes

• Have an advanced knowledge of four key ethnographic texts in recent anthropology.
• Understand and critically evaluate the relevance of ethnography as a mode of anthropological research.
• Ability to apply theoretical insights to ethnographic texts and contexts.

• An ability to read and critically evaluate book-length ethnographic arguments.
• Competency to conduct in-depth and theoretically informed analysis of a particular issue in relation to detailed ethnographic material.
• Engage anthropological arguments in relation to ethnographic methodology, ethics and epistemology.

• Prepare and present scholarly work for seminars and assessment.
• Independent and critical reading of ethnographies.
• Ability to integrate and apply new knowledge and skills in professional practice.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• Seminars
• Presentations
• Essay

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment

Formative feedback on Seminar presentations