MA Social Anthropology

In this course, we explore what is considered to be the core product of anthropological inquiry: the ethnography. An ethnography is a monograph about the lives, social worlds, and practices of specific people living, dwelling, resting or working in (or travelling between) specific places at a particular time. More often than not they draw on fieldwork conducted by an individual anthropologist, through which the researcher produces knowledge that contributes to a wider anthropological debate about what it means to be human.

The point of the course is to provide students with a forum in which ethnographies are read, discussed, and analysed in-depth as a way to learn about Social Anthropology as a particular kind of discipline. The course also provides the opportunity to think critically about what each book shows to its readers. Over its duration, the course aims to enable each student to learn to judge the quality of the research, identify different forms of analysis, and consider how other anthropologists might use ideas from each monograph.

The module is organised around four ethnographies. We will read them partly in terms of how they contribute to wider debates within anthropology. We will be concerned with the uses of evidence, interpretation, stylistics (as a means to communicate temporal and spatial representations), and with locating specific ethnographies in the history of the discipline’s different theoretical schools of thought.

 In this course, we will explore what is considered to be the core product of anthropological inquiry: the ethnography. An ethnography is a monograph about the lives, social worlds, and practices of specific people living, dwelling, resting or working in (or travelling between) specific places at a particular time. More often than not they draw on ethnographic fieldwork and contribute to wider anthropological debate. The point of the course is to provide students with a forum in which ethnographies are read, discussed, and analysed in-depth. The course aims to develop critical reading skills. The module is organised around four ethnographies and we will look at how (If at all) they talk to one another. We will read them partly in terms of how they contribute to wider debates within anthropology. We will be concerned with writing styles, issues of voice and evidence, and with locating specific ethnographies in the history of the discipline. The course will be run like an extended and intensive 'book club'. Individual students (identified in advance) will take the lead in presenting different aspects (highlighted in advance) of the specific ethnography under discussion. But all students will be expected to actively participate in reading and discussing all four key texts. 

 Students will be able to build upon their learning and knowledge of these specific ethnographies in their other work for the MA or Diploma in Social Anthropology.  Discussion and course work will help students read ethnography, extract relevant material and get to grips with different ethnographic writing styles and strategies, as well as demonstrate their understanding of the relationship between fieldwork, ethnography and theory within anthropology. The course further enables students to present their ideas orally and in writing and in collaboration with other students and the lecturer.

Lectures

Knowledge:

• Students will be able to build upon their knowledge of these specific ethnographies to support their other work for the MA or Diploma in Social Anthropology.

Skills:

• Discussion and course work will help students read ethnography, extract relevant material and get to grips with different ethnographic writing styles and strategies

• Tasks and group work are designed to develop more critical reading skills that will help candidates inquire into the relationship between fieldwork and published ethnography, and between ethnography and theoretical themes of anthropology.

• The course further enables students to present their ideas orally and in writing and in collaboration with other students and the lecturer.

3 Critical Thinking:

• Optimally, students might each develop a personal intellectual position on the value of ethnography in anthropological theory. Some issues might include: What kind of knowledge does ethnography grasp, or what kind of comprehension does the ethnographer/ethnography enable?

o What makes a text ethnographic as opposed to journalistic, or biographic

o What does it mean to say that ethnography is a conversation? With whom?

o Is there a difference between ethnography and anthropology?

Assessment is by a 3,000-word assessed essay. You will have a choice of a question that spans the entire course, or a question that explores one or two ethnographies and associated reading in more depth. 

Students will have the opportunity to submit short book reviews (one for each book) that do not count towards the final assessment but that are highly recommended as a formative exercise to assess your developing understanding and your writing skills.

Students will get informal verbal feedback continuously throughout the course. Written formative feedback will be provided on non-assessed work. Written feedback will be given on the assessed essay at the end of the course.

There are a number of texts that can accompany you in your reading of the four ethnographies listed above. They may act as reference points and provide you with background and additional reading when it comes to writing your essays. We will dip in and out of some of them over the course. As in much of your studies of Social Anthropology at graduate level, nothing will be wasted, and the more you read the more you'll get out of your study of Social Anthropology at Manchester. All of the texts listed below would be helpful in expanding your anthropological horizons (even if it is not obvious at the time of reading), but you are not expected to read them all.

Asad, T. 1975. Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter. University of Manchester Press.

Atkinson, P. 1990. The Ethnographic Imagination: textual constructions of reality. London: Routledge. Auge, M. 1975. The Anthropological Circle. New York: Methuen.

Borneman, John and Abdellah Hammoudi (eds). 2009. Being There: The Fieldwork Encounter and the Making of Truth. University of California Press.

Brettell, Caroline B. (ed.) 1993. When they read what we write: The politics of ethnography. Westport:

Bergin and Garvey. Eriksen, Thomas Hylland. 2001. Small places, large issues: an introduction to social 5 and cultural anthropology. London: Pluto Press.

Epstein, W. 1976. The Craft of Anthropology. Manchester: University of Manchester Press.

Fabian, J. 1983. Time and the other: how anthropology makes its object. New York; Chichester: Columbia University Press.

Gay y Blasco, Paloma and Huon Wardle. 2007. How to Read Ethnography. Routledge. (NB Available as e-Book through the library)

Geertz, C. 1973. Thick Description in The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books. Geertz, C. 2004. After the Fact Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Geertz, C. 2007. Available Light. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Gupta, A. and J. Ferguson. 1997. Anthropological locations: Boundaries and Grounds of a Field Science. Berkeley: University of California Press Holly, V. 2000. The Comparative Method in Anthropology.

Ingold, Tim. 2008. ‘Anthropology Is Not Ethnography’. Proceedings of the British Academy 154: 69 – 92. http://proc.britac.ac.uk/tfiles/154p069.pdf

Kuper, Adam. 1996 [1973]. Anthropology and Anthropologists: the modern British School. London: Routledge.

Malinowski, B. 1922 “The Method, Aim and Scope of this Study, Chapter One”, in Argonauts of the Western Pacific. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul

Marcus G. and M. Fischer, 1986. Anthropology as Cultural Critique Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Narayan, Kirin. 1993. How Native Is a Native Anthropologist. American Anthropologist, 95 [3]:671-686. Stocking, G. 1978. Observers Observed: The Functionalist School University of Wisconsin Press.

Tsing, A. 1993. Preface, in In the realm of the Diamond Queen: marginality in an out of the way place. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Wagner, Roy. 1981 ‘Culture as Creativity, Chapter 1’ in The Invention of Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Wolf, Eric. 1983. Europe and the people without history. Berkeley: University of California Press.