Outline

Overview

This unit introduces students to contemporary issues in anthropology and the world. Students will learn approaches to climate change, illness and well-being, human-animal relations, life in cities, new forms of media, work and welfare, inequality, poverty and development, the social life of new digital technologies, the changing character of the family, emergent forms of violence and domination and the new forms of protest and resistance that are occurring in the world today. The unit will provide students informed and practical approaches to contemporary social problems and an appreciation of the different cultural lenses through which they are understood.

Unit details and rules

Academic unit	Anthropology
Credit points	6
Prerequisites ?	12 credit points at 1000 level in the Anthropology major
Corequisites ?	None
Prohibitions ?	None
Assumed knowledge ?	None
Available to study abroad and exchange students	Yes

Teaching staff

Coordinator	Ryan Schram, ryan.schram@sydney.edu.au

Type	Description	Weight	Due	Length
Assignment	Concept quiz A test of basic concepts and terms discussed in the first part of the class	15%	Week 04 Due date: 22 Mar 2021 at 09:00	10 questions
Outcomes assessed:
Assignment	Essay An argumentative essay on an open question of theory	30%	Week 06 Due date: 12 Apr 2021 at 09:00	1500 words
Outcomes assessed:
Assignment	Take-home essay assignment Essay answers to a choice of writing prompts on topics from the whole class	30%	Week 13 Due date: 15 Jun 2021 at 09:00	1500 words
Outcomes assessed:
Participation	Tutorial participation Regular contributions to weekly tutorial discussions	10%	Weekly	n/a
Outcomes assessed:
Assignment	Tutorial preparation journal Weekly reflections to prepare for discussion in class	15%	Weekly	1500 words total
Outcomes assessed:

Assessment summary

The complete instructions for each of the assignments in this class is posted on the class Canvas site. The procedures for submission and what to do if you fall behind and need an extension on your work are posted there as well.

Assessment criteria

See the table “What the results mean” on the Student Guide page, “Guide to grades” for an explanation of your score: https://www.sydney.edu.au/students/guide-to-grades.html#meaning.

For more information see guide to grades.

Late submission

In accordance with University policy, these penalties apply when written work is submitted after 11:59pm on the due date:

Deduction of 5% of the maximum mark for each calendar day after the due date.
After ten calendar days late, a mark of zero will be awarded.

This unit has an exception to the standard University policy or supplementary information has been provided by the unit coordinator. This information is displayed below:

Students have to submit all of the assignments in order to pass the class. Any missing assignments will result in an AF. The university policy for accepting late work, including late penalties, will be applied to students’ work. It is very important for students to keep in regular contact with their tutor about their progress in the class.

Academic integrity

The Current Student website provides information on academic integrity and the resources available to all students. The University expects students and staff to act ethically and honestly and will treat all allegations of academic integrity breaches seriously.

We use similarity detection software to detect potential instances of plagiarism or other forms of academic integrity breach. If such matches indicate evidence of plagiarism or other forms of academic integrity breaches, your teacher is required to report your work for further investigation.

Use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) and automated writing tools

You may only use generative AI and automated writing tools in assessment tasks if you are permitted to by your unit coordinator. If you do use these tools, you must acknowledge this in your work, either in a footnote or an acknowledgement section. The assessment instructions or unit outline will give guidance of the types of tools that are permitted and how the tools should be used.

Your final submitted work must be your own, original work. You must acknowledge any use of generative AI tools that have been used in the assessment, and any material that forms part of your submission must be appropriately referenced. For guidance on how to acknowledge the use of AI, please refer to the AI in Education Canvas site.

The unapproved use of these tools or unacknowledged use will be considered a breach of the Academic Integrity Policy and penalties may apply.

Studiosity is permitted unless otherwise indicated by the unit coordinator. The use of this service must be acknowledged in your submission as detailed on the Learning Hub’s Canvas page.

Outside assessment tasks, generative AI tools may be used to support your learning. The AI in Education Canvas site contains a number of productive ways that students are using AI to improve their learning.

Learning support

Simple extensions

If you encounter a problem submitting your work on time, you may be able to apply for an extension of five calendar days through a simple extension.  The application process will be different depending on the type of assessment and extensions cannot be granted for some assessment types like exams.

Special consideration

If exceptional circumstances mean you can’t complete an assessment, you need consideration for a longer period of time, or if you have essential commitments which impact your performance in an assessment, you may be eligible for special consideration or special arrangements.

Special consideration applications will not be affected by a simple extension application.

Using AI responsibly

Co-created with students, AI in Education includes lots of helpful examples of how students use generative AI tools to support their learning. It explains how generative AI works, the different tools available and how to use them responsibly and productively.

Weekly schedule

WK	Topic	Learning activity
Week 01	Two minds	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 02	Society as mind. Bashkow (2006); Hanks (1996).	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 03	The savage slot. Trouillot ([2003b] 2016); Trouillot ([2003a] 2016); Wolf (1984); Gilberthorpe (2007); Stasch (2015).	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 04	Close encounters. Sahlins (1988); Sahlins (1992); Sahlins (1996).	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 05	Ethnic nations on a global stage. J. L. Comaroff and Comaroff (2009); J. Comaroff and Comaroff (1989); J. L. Comaroff and Comaroff (1990); J. L. Comaroff (1987).	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 06	Cultural contexts for global forces. Englund and Leach (2000).	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 07	Bonds and bondage. Ferguson (2013); Perry (2005).	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 08	Revolutionary struggles. Abu‐Lughod (2012); Winegar (2012); Mittermaier (2014).	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 09	States of affect. Verdery (1999); Malarney (2001).	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 10	The city. Jaffe and Koning (2015); Chance (2018).	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 11	A piece of the pie. Ferguson (2015); Bize (2020).	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 12	A world of borders. Hoang (2017); Green (2011).	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 13	Arts of resistance. Farmer (1996); Hewamanne (2010).	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)

Attendance and class requirements

According to university policies, attendance is required in lectures and tutorials whether they are online or on campus, and tutorial participation is a part of your grade.

More importantly, though, your instructors and tutors want to get to know you as an individual and to help you and every student develop his or her own individual perspective on the field of anthropology. For that reason, we want to see you in class on a regular basis and to have regular (weekly) contact with each student to see how their thinking is developing.

Study commitment

Typically, there is a minimum expectation of 1.5-2 hours of student effort per week per credit point for units of study offered over a full semester. For a 6 credit point unit, this equates to roughly 120-150 hours of student effort in total.

Required readings

Abu‐Lughod, Lila. 2012. “Living the ‘Revolution’ in an Egyptian Village: Moral Action in a National Space.” American Ethnologist 39 (1): 21–25. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1425.2011.01341.x.

Bashkow, Ira. 2006. The Meaning of Whitemen: Race and Modernity in the Orokaiva Cultural World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Bize, Amiel. 2020. “The right to the remainder: Gleaning in the fuel economies of east Africa’s northern corridor.” Cultural Anthropology 35 (3): 462–86. https://doi.org/10.14506/ca35.3.05.

Chance, Kerry Ryan. 2018. “Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust: How Territorial Informality Builds Future Cities.” In Living Politics in South Africa’s Urban Shacklands, 85–105. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/usyd/detail.action?docID=4914483.

Comaroff, Jean, and John L. Comaroff. 1989. “The Colonization of Consciousness in South Africa.” Economy and Society 18 (3): 267–96. https://doi.org/10.1080/03085148900000013.

Comaroff, John L. 1987. “Of Totemism and Ethnicity: Consciousness, Practice and the Signs of Inequality.” Ethnos 52 (3-4): 301–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/00141844.1987.9981348.

Comaroff, John L., and Jean Comaroff. 1990. “Goodly Beasts, Beastly Goods: Cattle and Commodities in a South African Context.” American Ethnologist 17 (2): 195–216. http://www.jstor.org/stable/645076.

———. 2009. “A Tale of Two Ethnicities.” In Ethnicity, Inc., 86–116. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Englund, Harri, and James Leach. 2000. “Ethnography and the Meta‐Narratives of Modernity.” Current Anthropology 41 (2): 225–48. https://doi.org/10.1086/ca.2000.41.issue-2.

Farmer, Paul. 1996. “On Suffering and Structural Violence: A View from Below.” Daedalus 125 (1): 261–83. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20027362.

Ferguson, James. 2013. “Declarations of Dependence: Labour, Personhood, and Welfare in Southern Africa.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 19 (2): 223–42. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.12023.

———. 2015. “A Rightful Share: Distribution Beyond Gift and Market.” In Give a Man a Fish: Reflections on the New Politics of Distribution, 165–89. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/usyd/detail.action?docID=2038189.

Gilberthorpe, Emma. 2007. “Fasu Solidarity: A Case Study of Kin Networks, Land Tenure, and Oil Extraction in Kutubu, Papua New Guinea.” American Anthropologist 109 (1): 101–12. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.2007.109.1.101.

Green, Linda. 2011. “The Nobodies: Neoliberalism, Violence, and Migration.” Medical Anthropology 30 (4): 366–85. https://doi.org/10.1080/01459740.2011.576726.

Hanks, William F. 1996. “The Language of Saussure.” In Language and Communicative Practices, 21–38. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press. https://search.alexanderstreet.com/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cdocument%7C1677290?account_id=14757&usage_group_id=95408.

Hewamanne, Sandya. 2010. “Suicide Narratives and in-Between Identities Among Sri Lanka’s Factory Workers.” Ethnology 49 (1): 1–22. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41410877.

Hoang, Lan Anh. 2017. “Governmentality in Asian Migration Regimes: The Case of Labour Migration from Vietnam to Taiwan.” Population, Space and Place 23 (3): e2019. https://doi.org/10.1002/psp.2019.

Jaffe, Rivke, and Anouk De Koning. 2015. “Introduction.” In Introducing Urban Anthropology, 1–19. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315669397.

Malarney, Shaun Kingsley. 2001. “"The Fatherland Remembers Your Sacrifice": Commemorating War Dead in North Vietnam.” In The Country of Memory Remaking the Past in Late Socialist Vietnam, edited by Hue-Tam Ho Tai, 46–76. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Mittermaier, Amira. 2014. “Bread, Freedom, Social Justice: The Egyptian Uprising and a Sufi Khidma.” Cultural Anthropology 29 (1, 1): 54–79. https://doi.org/10.14506/ca29.1.05.

Perry, Donna L. 2005. “Wolof Women, Economic Liberalization, and the Crisis of Masculinity in Rural Senegal.” Ethnology 44 (3): 207–26. https://doi.org/10.2307/3774056.

Sahlins, Marshall. 1988. “Cosmologies of Capitalism: The Trans-Pacific Sector of "The World System".” Proceeedings of the British Academy 74: 1–51. https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/sites/default/files/74p001.pdf.

———. 1992. “The Economics of Develop-Man in the Paciﬁc.” Res 21: 13–25.

———. 1996. “The Sadness of Sweetness: The Native Anthropology of Western Cosmology.” Current Anthropology 37 (3): 395–428. https://doi.org/10.1086/204503.

Stasch, Rupert. 2015. “How an Egalitarian Polity Structures Tourism and Restructures Itself Around It.” Ethnos 80 (4): 524–47. https://doi.org/10.1080/00141844.2014.942226.

Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. (2003a) 2016. “Adieu, Culture: A New Duty Arises.” In Global Transformations: Anthropology and the Modern World, 97–116. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-137-04144-9.

———. (2003b) 2016. “Anthropology and the Savage Slot: The Poetics and Politics of Otherness.” In Global Transformations: Anthropology and the Modern World, 7–28. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-137-04144-9.

Verdery, Katherine. 1999. The Political Lives of Dead Bodies: Reburial and Postsocialist Change. New York: Columbia University Press.

Winegar, Jessica. 2012. “The Privilege of Revolution: Gender, Class, Space, and Affect in Egypt.” American Ethnologist 39 (1): 67–70. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1425.2011.01349.x.

Wolf, Eric R. 1984. “Culture: Panacea or Problem?” American Antiquity 49 (2): 393–400. http://www.jstor.org/stable/280026.

Learning outcomes

Learning outcomes are what students know, understand and are able to do on completion of a unit of study. They are aligned with the University's graduate qualities and are assessed as part of the curriculum.

Outcomes
Graduate qualities

At the completion of this unit, you should be able to:

LO1. demonstrate a deep familiarity with the areas of social life that anthropologists examine through cross-cultural comparison and cultural immersion.
LO2. understand how contemporary anthropological arguments are constructed through analysis of relevant evidence and theory.
LO3. understand the various methodologies used in ethnographic research and how they can enable social and cultural insight and theoretical innovation.
LO4. demonstrate proficiency in the use of anthropological databases and scholarly literature relevant to research in the discipline.
LO5. use anthropological knowledge to inform and critique social scientific theories.
LO6. communicate anthropological knowledge through various media and to make a valued societal impact with that knowledge.

Graduate qualities

The graduate qualities are the qualities and skills that all University of Sydney graduates must demonstrate on successful completion of an award course. As a future Sydney graduate, the set of qualities have been designed to equip you for the contemporary world.

GQ1	Depth of disciplinary expertise Deep disciplinary expertise is the ability to integrate and rigorously apply knowledge, understanding and skills of a recognised discipline defined by scholarly activity, as well as familiarity with evolving practice of the discipline.
GQ2	Critical thinking and problem solving Critical thinking and problem solving are the questioning of ideas, evidence and assumptions in order to propose and evaluate hypotheses or alternative arguments before formulating a conclusion or a solution to an identified problem.
GQ3	Oral and written communication Effective communication, in both oral and written form, is the clear exchange of meaning in a manner that is appropriate to audience and context.
GQ4	Information and digital literacy Information and digital literacy is the ability to locate, interpret, evaluate, manage, adapt, integrate, create and convey information using appropriate resources, tools and strategies.
GQ5	Inventiveness Generating novel ideas and solutions.
GQ6	Cultural competence Cultural Competence is the ability to actively, ethically, respectfully, and successfully engage across and between cultures. In the Australian context, this includes and celebrates Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, knowledge systems, and a mature understanding of contemporary issues.
GQ7	Interdisciplinary effectiveness Interdisciplinary effectiveness is the integration and synthesis of multiple viewpoints and practices, working effectively across disciplinary boundaries.
GQ8	Integrated professional, ethical, and personal identity An integrated professional, ethical and personal identity is understanding the interaction between one’s personal and professional selves in an ethical context.
GQ9	Influence Engaging others in a process, idea or vision.

Outcome map

Learning outcomes	Graduate qualities
Learning outcomes

Responding to student feedback

This section outlines changes made to this unit following staff and student reviews.

This is a new class that has been developed as a requirement for anthropology majors to give them a firm foundation in the field.

Additional information

Please see the class Canvas site for a comprehensive guide to the class, including a guide to each week’s topic, required readings, and recommended readings, and full instructions for each assignment.

Disclaimer

The University reserves the right to amend units of study or no longer offer certain units, including where there are low enrolment numbers.

To help you understand common terms that we use at the University, we offer an online glossary.

Current students

Overview

Overview

Unit details and rules

Teaching staff

Assessment

Assessment

Assessment summary

Assessment criteria

Late submission

Academic integrity

Learning support

Learning support

Simple extensions

Special consideration

Using AI responsibly

Weekly schedule

Weekly schedule

Attendance and class requirements

Study commitment

Required readings

Learning outcomes

Learning outcomes

Graduate qualities

Outcome map

Responding to student feedback

Responding to student feedback

Additional information

Additional information

Disclaimer

On this page

Useful links

Media

Student links

About us

Connect

Current students

ANTH2700: Key Debates in Anthropology

Semester 1, 2021 [Normal day] - Remote

Overview

Overview

Unit details and rules

Teaching staff

Assessment

Assessment

Assessment summary

Assessment criteria

Late submission

Academic integrity

Learning support

Learning support

Simple extensions

Special consideration

Using AI responsibly

Weekly schedule

Weekly schedule

Attendance and class requirements

Study commitment

Required readings

Learning outcomes

Learning outcomes

Graduate qualities

Outcome map

Responding to student feedback

Responding to student feedback

Additional information

Additional information

Disclaimer

On this page

Useful links

Media

Student links

About us

Connect