| CODE | ANT2080 | |||||||||
| TITLE | Anthropology of South Asia | |||||||||
| 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 a brief overview of the colonial history and colonial context of South Asia (India, Sri Lanka and Nepal in particular). It then critically considers the political movements and social transformations that have shaped the contemporary south asian context by considering the following questions: How do 'South Asian' politics, writ large, translate into people's everyday cultural contexts and communal political settings? What characterises the political economy of this region and how is this shaped, if at all, by the broader global market and political stage? These questions are explored through a critical inquiry into the fundamental features of everyday life including: religion and ritual, family, kinship and politics, crisis and resilience. The unit draws a distinction between political movements at the national and local level (Politics with a big 'P' versus politics with a small 'p'), using this distinction to explore contemporary crises in the South Asian context. Theoretically, the unit concentrates on fundamental anthropological theories of kinship and social connections, as well as conflict and resilience - this focus provides an opportunity to critically reflect and compare seemingly disparate regions at the global level and to trace familiar patterns and examples of 'being human'. Using a rich body of anthropological literature on the region, the unit interrogates the relationship between micro and macro structures of power and the forms that these take. Study-Unit Aims: This study-unit is designed firstly to enable students to realize that the current debates in South Asian anthropology are the outcome of a long historical process, particularly colonialism; secondly, to enable students to draw parallels between key socio-economic and political phenomena in the South Asian context and other regions of the world, particularly those that share a common historical trajectory; and thirdly, to equip students with the methods developed by anthropologists for evaluating the fundamentals of everyday life (kinship, ritual, exchange etc..) across regions and comparing different ideologies and practical projects. Learning Outcomes: 1. Knowledge & Understanding: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - describe in speech and in writing the socio-economic and political environment in a South Asian context and compare this to other environments at the global level; - compare in speech and in writing the similarities and differences between fundamental social and cultural features that inform everyday life; - describe in speech and in writing a summary of a socio-cultural issue and how this informs broader anthropological and theoretical orientation. - to write at length in a clear fashion how knowledge of a region's historical trajectory can shed light on contemporary developments. 2. Skills: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: (generically) specify in speech and in writing how contemporary attitudes and cultural orientations are the outcome of both local and global politics and are shaped by the longer history of a region/locality; (practically) decode the language (and agenda) of macro political and economic processes in the South Asian region, so that the student sees that they are responses to, and informed by, relationships at a global level as well as at a more (micro) local level, and identify patterns that emerge in other parts of the world and that reveal comparable responses to similar issues and pressures. Main Text/s and any supplementary readings: Main Texts: - Bear, L. (2015). Navigating Austerity: Currents of Debt along a South Asian River. Stanford, CA.:Stanford University Press. - Das, V., & Singh, B. (1995). Critical events: an anthropological perspective on contemporary India (Vol. 7). New Delhi: Oxford University Press. - Gellner, D. (Ed.). (2010). Varieties of activist experience: civil society in South Asia (Vol. 3). SAGE Publications India. - Gupta, A. (2012). Red tape: Bureaucracy, structural violence, and poverty in India. Duke University Press. - McGilvray, D., & Gamburd, M. (2010). Tsunami Recovery in Sri Lanka: ethnic and regional dimensions (Vol. 18). Routledge. - Spencer, J. (1990). A Sinhala village in a time of trouble: politics and change in rural Sri Lanka. Delhi: Oxford University Press. - Spencer, J. (2007). Anthropology, Politics, and the State: Democracy and Violence in South Asia (New Departures in Anthropology). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. - Winslow, D., & Woost, M. D. (Eds.). (2004). Economy, culture, and civil war in Sri Lanka. Indiana University Press. Supplementary Readings: - Baviskar, A. (2019). Uncivil city: Ecology, equity and the commons in Delhi. Sage Publications. - Baviskar, A. (1999). In the belly of the river: tribal conflicts over development in the Narmada Valley. Oxford University Press. - Bear, L. (2007). Lines of the Nation (Cultures of history). New York: Columbia University Press. - Gamburd, M. R. (2008). Breaking the ashes: The culture of illicit liquor in Sri Lanka. Cornell University Press. - Obeyesekere, G. (1984). Medusa's hair: An essay on personal symbols and religious experience. University of Chicago Press. - Filippo Osella, & Caroline Osella. (2015). Social Mobility in Kerala. Pluto Press. - Thiranagama, S., & Obeyesekere, G. (2011). In my mother's house: Civil war in Sri Lanka (The ethnography of political violence). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. - Tambiah, S. J. (1986). Sri Lanka--ethnic fratricide and the dismantling of democracy. University of Chicago Press |
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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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