| CODE | ANT2051 | ||||||||
| TITLE | Anthropology of Violence | ||||||||
| UM LEVEL | 02 - Years 2, 3 in Modular Undergraduate Course | ||||||||
| MQF LEVEL | 5 | ||||||||
| ECTS CREDITS | 4 | ||||||||
| DEPARTMENT | Anthropological Sciences | ||||||||
| DESCRIPTION | This study-unit begins with an overview of the theoretical foundations of the study of violence in anthropology, namely by 1) focusing on symbolic violence to intterrogate how power is exercised over marginalised groups or persons, and 2) focusing on structural violence as the formalisation of inequality and discrimination by states and other institutional mechanisms in the management of marginalised groups or persons. Following this theoretical introduction to violence, the unit explores methodological approaches to the study of violence, whilst also exploring ethnographically different scenarios and cultural contexts, and expressions, of violence. This ranges from collective violence in the form of conflic, caste, extreme-right movements, torture to indiviudal expressions of violence such suicide and self-harm. Study-unit Aims: This study-unit is designed to enable students to realize that the current debates in, and language of, studies of violence are inherently linked to broader poltical and economic decisions that distribute power unevenly; secondly, to enable students to place the academic disciplines, government policies, and practical policy applications attached to violence in their specific social, cultural, and political settings; and thirdly, to equip students with the methods developed by anthropologists for evaluating and comparing different ideologies and practical projects subsumed under the broader umbrella term of violence. Learning Outcomes: 1. Knowledge & Understanding By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - write a clear summary of the different experiences and expressions violence across different regions of the world; - compare in speech and in writing the similarities and differences between structural, symbolic, collective and self-oriented violence; - describe in speech and in writing the social and the cultural environment which needs to be understood before any analysis of violence can be designed appropriately or implemented practically; - write at length in a clear fashion how knowledge of conflicts arising as a result of structural and symbolic violence, provides a guide to the relevance or otherwise of present policies and projects. 2. Skills By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - (generically) specify in speech and in writing how expressions of violence and culturally-specific forms of violent action are the outcome of local politics, economic disparities and cultural attitudes; - (practically) decode the language of violence and conflict in local settings, so that the student sees that they are responses to particular local pressures, contain particular values about how the world should work, and make particular assumptions about how the human world actually works. Main Text/s and any supplementary readings: Main texts - Bourgois, P., Bourgois, P. I., & Schonberg, J. (2009). Righteous dopefiend (Vol. 21). Univ of California Press. - Farmer, P. (2004). Pathologies of power: Health, human rights, and the new war on the poor (Vol. 4). Univ of California Press. - Nordstrom, C. (2004). Shadows of war: Violence, power, and international profiteering in the twenty-first century (Vol. 10). Univ of California Press. - Nordstrom, C., & Robben, A. C. (Eds.). (1995). Fieldwork under fire: Contemporary studies of violence and culture. Univ of California Press. - Rylko-Bauer, B., & Farmer, P. (2016). Structural violence, poverty, and social suffering. The Oxford handbook of the social science of poverty, 47-74. - Scheper-Hughes, N. (1993). Death without weeping: The violence of everyday life in Brazil. Univ of California Press. Supplementary texts - Hughes, D. (2013). Violence, torture and memory in Sri Lanka: life after terror. Routledge. - Petryna, A. (2013). Life exposed: biological citizens after Chernobyl. Princeton University Press. - Scheper-Hughes, N., & Bourgois, P. I. (Eds.). (2004). Violence in war and peace: An anthology (Vol. 5). Blackwell Pub. - Taussig, M. (2008). Shamanism, colonialism, and the wild man: A study in terror and healing. University of Chicago Press. - Thiranagama, S., & Kelly, T. (Eds.). (2011). Traitors: Suspicion, intimacy, and the ethics of state-building. University of Pennsylvania Press. - Widger, T. (2015). Suicide in Sri Lanka: the anthropology of an epidemic. Routledge. |
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| STUDY-UNIT TYPE | Lecture and Seminar | ||||||||
| METHOD OF ASSESSMENT |
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| LECTURER/S | Maurice Said |
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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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