Course Description
Relationships among development, culture and environment from the world system perspective. Concepts of dependence, hegemony, inequality, and resistance are brought to bear in exploring interlinkages between (and among) underdevelopment, resource exploitation, and local autonomy and self-reliance.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students:
Bibliography and literature review on selected topics.
Athena Title
Anthropology of Development
Equivalent Courses
Not open to students with credit in ANTH 4560I
Prerequisite
ANTH 1102 or permission of major
Semester Course Offered
Not offered on a regular basis.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
This course is an introduction to development as a historical process and as an engineered process. We will critically examine the relationship between economic development, on one hand, and culture and environment on the other. This will focus not only on other parts of the globe, the so-called underdeveloped or developing countries that comprise the Third World, but also will include a look closer to home. The readings and discussions will allow us to understand the local in a globalizing world as well as to explore concepts of development and dependence, hierarchy and inequality, and hegemony and resistance in relation to modernization and modernity. We will also examine the roles of anthropologists, and the approaches they use, both to investigate and critique development and contribute to it in various ways. Students will produce a development journal as well as a research paper that will be presented in class. This, of course, will require students to: Assimilate, analyze, and present in written forms a body of information; interpret content of written materials on related topics from various disciplines; and compose effective written materials for various academic and professional contexts. As this will be presented in class, students will also: assimilate, analyze, and present written paper into an oral form. The student will communicate for academic and professional contexts. This will require the ability to communicate in various modes and media, including the proper use of appropriate technology, including but perhaps not limited to: web searches, powerpoint or other presentation software, word processing software, and email to contact instructor with topic of paper, etc. Classroom discussions are essential to the learning outcomes of this course. Critical thinking is a must. Students will consider and engage opposing points of view as well as interpret inference and develop subtleties of symbolic and indirect discourse. Students should analyze arguments and support a consistent purpose and point of view. When called upon, students will assimilate, analyze, and present a body of information for the class to discuss. Students will develop an understanding of the ethics theory related to decision-making, and develop an understanding of the basis of ethical principles, codes, and standards of conduct. This will be accomplished by: recognizing the community and the greater common good in addition to individual needs and goals; judging and understanding ethical behavior in social applications; and contributing to the eradication of stereotypes and prejudices that exist in society, either in crude forms or in more sophisticated and sometimes pseudo-scientific ones.
Topical Outline
. Introduction . Begin Development Journal . News Reflections, discuss assigned readings . Presentation: Dams and Forests---Indigenous Resistance and the Liberal State in Chile . Mapping and Its Discontents . Local Knowledge, Transported Knowledge and Healing Gardens . Anthropological Approaches to Sustainable Development . Promises and Perils of Interdisciplinary Landscape Research . Discuss Nazarea Chapters 6 & 7 . Film "American Hollow" . Gullah and Hispanic Gardeners . Film "Ladakh" . Begin Research Projects . Guest Presentation: In Memory of Tigers and Wilderness: a Peace Corps in Nepal in the Sixties by Dr. Robert Rhoades . Submit research proposal . Graduate Student Presentation . Proposal returned with feedback . Turn in Development Journal . Class Presentations
Syllabus