MA Social Anthropology

Year of entry: 2024

Course unit details:
Contemporary Debates in Social Anthropology

Course unit fact file
Unit code SOAN70822
Credit rating 15
Unit level FHEQ level 7 – master's degree or fourth year of an integrated master's degree
Teaching period(s) Semester 2
Available as a free choice unit? Yes

Overview

This course is designed to provide an in-depth understanding of the development of theoretical  
approaches and contemporary debates in social anthropology. Its objective is to give students an  
opportunity to think at a more advanced level about a range of problems relating to the acquisition,  
production, communication and uses of anthropological knowledge as well as its substantive  
content and relevance to the world in which we now live. Students will engage with debates  
concerning anthropological description and its political, historical, philosophical precedents and  
implications, and its emergence through particular relations and discourses.  

Learning outcomes

 This course will examine the latest debates and anthropological analysis that have been used to understand the complex dynamic of the various domains of society and cultural life including social integration, ideologies of kinship and gender, memory and movement, affect and materiality, political alterity and gift theories, rationality and subjectivity, agency, race and violence. The course will be based around discussion of key readings and structured debate. All students will be expected to prepare for and engage in set debates in class. This will involve a close reading of the set readings for each week. The debates will be adjudicated and students will get the opportunity to express their own opinions and ground the topics that are debated in everyday experience. Through this process, students will be able to discuss what they have read, how they have understood what they have read, and where and how the insights they have gained can be taken further. It is an opportunity to critically evaluate what it is exactly we may be advocating/arguing in anthropology and why. The written assessment for this course will allow students to demonstrate a critical and in-depth understanding of contemporary, on-going debates in anthropology whilst reflecting on the debates and discussion that take place in class. Students learn a great deal by applying their own efforts. Remember, all efforts and input are ways of learning and points of discussion.

Assessment methods

One 3000 word assessed essay

Study hours

Scheduled activity hours
Lectures 20
Independent study hours
Independent study 130

Teaching staff

Staff member Role
Gillian Evans Unit coordinator

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