ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE CONTEMPORARY GLOBAL WORLD

N.B. This class is organised by the Ca' Foscari School for International Education (SIE). Students cannot attend classes or take exams if they are not officially enrolled in the course. For further information on the SIE English-taught courses for exchange students, please visit this webpage: https://www.unive.it/pag/35228/

At the end of the course, students will have acquired the fundamental knowledge regarding the theoretical reflections and the research trajectories developed by anthropologists on global contemporary phenomena. This course helps students "think anthropologically" by introducing core concepts through engaging case studies. Students will also have acquired practical skills related to the application and applicability of anthropological research in the contemporary world. The issues discussed can provide students with useful insights for the elaboration of aware and responsible research projects.

There are no prerequisites for this course.

Through an in-depth exploration of the main interpretative approaches that have contributed to shaping what can be called "an anthropology of the contemporary global world", as well as through the presentation of specific research experiences, the course aims to emphasize the absolute necessity of applying an anthropological perspective to observe, understand, and interpret the phenomena of our contemporaneity. The course aims to provide students with a general overview of both the epistemological and methodological debates that have marked cultural anthropology from the 1990s to the present day. We will explore the foundations, the focal areas and the urgent issues of cultural anthropology. We will analyse the transformations in the concepts of culture, space, identity, fieldwork, as well as the definition of new politics of difference in the contemporary global world. Emphasis will be placed on the need to go beyond the notion of deterritorialization and instead explore and develop inclusive theories concerning how space is being reterritorialized in the contemporary world, but we will focus also on the dynamics related to the production of locality on a global level, on cultural heritagization and festivalization processes.

Power Point presentations (provided by the teacher)

Lecture notes (provided by the teacher):
- Gupta A., Ferguson J. (eds), Culture, Power, Place. Explorations in Critical Anthropology, Durham and London, Duke University Press, 1997, pp. 33-51.
- Sharma A., Gupta A., "Introduction: Rethinking Theories of the State in an Age of Globalization", in Sharma A., Gupta A. (eds), The Anthropology of the State: A Reader, Oxford, Blackwell, 2006, pp. 1-41.

One book:
- Abu-Lughod L., Dramas of Nationhood. The Politics of Television in Egypt, Chicago and London, University of Chicago Press, 2005.
- Kapchan D., Traveling Spirit Masters: Moroccan Gnawa Trance and Music in the Global Marketplace, Middletown, Wesleyan University Press, 2007.
- Taussig M., My Cocaine Museum, Chicago and London, University of Chicago Press, 2004.
- Tsing A., The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2021.

The exam takes place face to face and will consist of a written test focused on the topics analysed during the course and on the texts included in the course bibliography.

Lectures, dialogical and participatory approach, fieldwork exercises.

written

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Poverty and inequalities" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development