ANTHRO 247

Anthropology Today: Debates in Culture

Please note: this is archived course information from 2018 for ANTHRO 247.

Description

The course will introduce you to some of the key contemporary issues and debates that anthropologists are engaged in. This subject will contextualise the discipline of anthropology in the wider world, connecting anthropological practice to technological, political and ethical realities of contemporary life. In this course, through the use of case study and anthropological theory, we will look at digital technologies, organizational ethnographies and the role in of the anthropologist in the public sphere. By nature of the discipline, anthropologists are constantly in contact with the world around them. We take our experiences home and use them as data, but our relationships with the world is always more complex than objective observation. Our work extends beyond the academy into public and political life. This subject will consider some of the ways in which ethnographers deal with the multitude of loyalties that our fieldwork engenders in the world today. 

Course objectives:

• To provide students with an understanding of the way anthropological ideas can be applied to issues in the contemporary world.
• To introduce students to the various disciplinary ideas around digital ethnographies and spaces, organizational and design applications and ethnical and practical views on public engagement.
• To develop a more reflexive anthropological position on these issues for future study, research and workplace use.  
• To be able to communicate anthropological ideas in a professional and public setting.

View the course syllabus

Availability 2018

Semester 2

Lecturer(s)

Lecturer(s) Dr Alex Pavlotski

Points

ANTHRO 247: 15.0 points

Prerequisites

ANTHRO 100 or 30 points in Anthropology

Restrictions

ANTHRO 331