| CODE | ANT2046 | ||||||
| TITLE | Anthropology of Communication Technologies | ||||||
| UM LEVEL | 02 - Years 2, 3 in Modular Undergraduate Course | ||||||
| MQF LEVEL | Not Applicable | ||||||
| ECTS CREDITS | 2 | ||||||
| DEPARTMENT | Anthropology | ||||||
| DESCRIPTION | This study-unit will introduce the anthropology of communication technologies as an area of research and as a method in fieldwork. Radio, fixed line telephones, TV, mobile phones, voice over IP networks, voice over IP applications (such as Skype), email, blogging, instant messaging, video streaming and video blogging (and the list could go on) are communication technologies that many anthropologists are now encountering in their fieldwork. The widespread presence of communication technologies challenge not only the way anthropologists theorise social interaction, cohesion and networks, personhood and gender but they also challenge the archetypal method of fieldwork in anthropology: face-to-face participant observation. The study-unit will explore these key issues in turn through the ethnographic experiences that inspired them as well as briefly touching on the history of technologies of writing and the telephone to provide comparative grist for critical thinking. Learning Outcomes: 1. Having completed and participated in the study-unit – lectures, workshops and set readings – students will be able to discuss key themes in the anthropology of communication technologies drawing on theory and ethnographic examples. 2. Students will be able to discuss at least 2 issues on the question of ‘inter-personal presence’ in anthropological fieldwork and evaluate the respective fieldwork methods in relation to particular ethnographies to be read during the course of the lectures. Reading List: • Vered Amit Constructing the field: ethnographic fieldwork in the contemporary world (London; New York : Routledge, 2000) • Craig Calhoun, "Community without propinquity revisited: communications technology and the transformation of the urban public sphere", (Sociological Inquiry, Vol. 68 No.3 1998) • Shelley Correll, “The ethnography of an electronic bar” (Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Vol. 24, No. 3, 270-298 1995) • Arturo Escobar “Welcome to Cyberia: Notes on the Anthropology of Cyberculture” (Current Anthropology, Vol. 35, No. 3 1994) • Cristina Garsten and Helena Wulff (eds), New technologies at work: People, Screens and Social Virtuality (Introduction, Oxford : Berg, 2003) • C Gatt nd “Presence and communication technology in environmentalism: the way Friends of the Earth International does it” (unpublished paper, Reunion de Antropologia del Mercosur, 2009) • Sarah Green, Penny Harvey and Hannah Knox “Scales of Place and Networks: An Ethnography of the Imperative to Connect through Information and Communications Technologies”, (Current Anthropology Volume 46, Number 5, December 2005) • Chris Hables gray & Mark Driscoll “What's real about virtual reality?: Anthropology of, and in, cyberspace”, (Visual Anthropology Review, Vol. 8, No. 2 1992) • Kirsten Hastrup and Peter Hervik Social experience and anthropological knowledge (Introduction, London ; New York : Routledge, 1994) • Tim Ingold “Tools, minds and machines: an excursion into the philosophy of technology” (Chapter 15, Perception of the Environment, London; New York: Routledge 2000) • Tim Ingold “Language Music and Notation” (Chapter 1, Lines: A brief History London; New York: Routledge 2007) • Karin Knorr Cetina and Urs Bruegger “ Global Microstructures: The Virtual Societies of Financial Markets” (The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 107, No. 4 2002) • Daniel Miller and Don Slater The Internet: an Ethnographic approach (Oxford : Berg, 2000) • Daniel Miller and Heather Horst The Cell: An Anthropology of Communication (Oxford : Berg, 2006) • Margaret Morse Virtualities: Television, Media Art, and Cyberculture (Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press 1998) • Judith Okely and Helen Callaway Anthropology and Autobiography (Lond; New York: Routledge 1992) • Bryan Pfaffenberger “Social anthropology of technology” (Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 1992.21:491-516) • Adam Reed “My Blog is me: Texts and persons in UK online journal culture (and anthropology)”, (Ethnos, Volume 70, Number 2, June 2005) • Patricia Sunderland, “Fieldwork on the phone” (Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 72, No. 3 Jul., 1999) • Sherry Turkle 1995. Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995) • John Urry 2002 “Mobility and proximity” (Sociology, Vol. 36, No. 2, 255-274 2002) • Samuel Wilson and Leighton Peterson “The Anthropology of Online Communities”, (Annual Review of Anthropology vol. 31 2002) |
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| STUDY-UNIT TYPE | Lecture and Workshop | ||||||
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The University makes every effort to ensure that the published Courses Plans, Programmes of Study and Study-Unit information are complete and up-to-date at the time of publication. The University reserves the right to make changes in case errors are detected after publication.
The availability of optional units may be subject to timetabling constraints. Units not attracting a sufficient number of registrations may be withdrawn without notice. It should be noted that all the information in the description above applies to study-units available during the academic year 2025/6. It may be subject to change in subsequent years. |
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