This course examines how farmers in post-colonial less-developed countries cope with challenges of resource management, cultural survival, poverty, risk, and uncertainty. The course examines farmers' entangled relationships with international development organizations and agricultural industries. The course emphasizes empirical (evidence-based) and critical thinking about contemporary rural and agrarian issues.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students: Graduate students will have an enhanced reading load accompanied by periodic meetings to discuss the readings. Students will be expected to write more lengthy and thorough research papers.
Athena Title
Culture and Agriculture
Prerequisite
ANTH 1102 or ANTH 1102E or ANTH 2120H
Semester Course Offered
Offered spring
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Student Learning Outcomes
Students will critically evaluate popular images of agrarian crises of overpopulation and underproduction in scholarship, media, and daily discourse.
Students will understand the social, ecological, and political challenges that farmers face in making a living.
Students will apply anthropological concepts to imagine improved practices in international development practice.
Students will research and write original scholarly arguments using peer-reviewed journal articles and proper citation practices.
Topical Outline
Part 1: Crisis in the countryside?
- Empiricism, criticism, and the origins of agriculture
- Empirical and critical perspectives on overpopulation/underproduction
- Empirical and critical perspectives on sustainability
- Empirical and critical perspectives on labor and dependency
- Who are "peasants?"
- Who is "international development?"
Part 2: Tradeoffs in the countryside
- Case studies
- Soil and water as limited resources
- Agroecological tradeoffs
- Investment tradeoffs
- Risk and reward tradeoffs
- Value tradeoffs
Part 3: People of the countryside
- Urban fears of rurality
- The moral economy of the peasant
- Informal institutions
- The Green Revolution
- Empirical and critical perspectives on international development
