Challenges of the 21st Century

Course Objective

The aim of the course is to make students familiar with the
anthropological discipline, its key issues, the various conceptual
approaches, the theoretical discussions and efforts to understand a
contemporary world in turmoil. We engage with basic concepts, such as
culture, socialisation, resistance, embodiment, and power, how they
developed throughout the history of anthropology and how they can help
to understand and explain contemporary societal issues.

There are six central themes that will be revisited implicitly and
explicitly: 1) the nature of cultures, 2) the individual and society, 3)
beliefs and belonging, 4) structure and agency, 5) the body and
materiality, and 6) language and categorisations. Anthropologists have
time and again addressed these themes in different ways and under
different circumstances. They constitute the basis for theoretical
disagreements and methodological reflections, but also for assessing
contemporary societal issues. They should however in no way be treated
as disciplinary straightjackets. Far from that, the themes only help us
to draw some lines in the enormous complexity of human activities and
human lifeworlds. Students obtain knowledge and insights in the specific
ways in which anthropology addresses contemporary topical issues and
urgent societal problems.

Learning objectives:
Knowledge and understanding.
(1) Students obtain knowledge of and insights into how key
anthropological concepts and theories can be applied in order to
address, assess and analyze contemporary societal issues.

Application:
(2) Students learn how to apply these analytical insights and how
anthropologists can contribute to the explanation and possible solution
of pressing societal issues. They learn about the specific problem
definitions, conceptual frameworks, and paradigmatic approaches typical
for anthropology.

Attitude:
(3) After having completed this course, students demonstrate the
ability to critically observe, describe and analyze urgent societal
problems from an anthropological perspective and consider the
contingencies and limits of their own cultural routines.

Course Content

Each era faces societal challenges that keep politicians, the public and
academia busy. Our 21st century is no exception. Contemporary
anthropologists nowadays assess urgent issues and formulate questions to
understand their significance and consequence, such as new forms of
urbanisation and mobility, far-reaching technological and digital
developments, ongoing destructions of habitats due to large-scale
economic activity, the over-use of natural resources and transnational
violent conflicts, which force people to migrate or turn to local
strategies that adapt or contest these processes of accelerated change.
These pressing socio-political developments in some parts of the world
are complex issues that pose a challenge for local, national and
international governmental bodies. Behind the technical administrative
challenges there are the much more fundamental questions about who the
real victims are and who benefits from crises and emergencies.
Knowledge and its application in policies all depend on the perspective
we take in assessing these urgent issues. The task for anthropologists -
in and outside academia - is to demonstrate that there simply is no
universal definition of what a contemporary challenge or problem is and
that governance is always a deeply political practice and full of
competing interests. Anthropology may be not unique in recognising a
multitude of perspectives, but it definitely is the most outspoken
discipline in exposing diversity in climate change and global
warming, the refugee and health crisis, urbanisation and economic
transformation, the role of religion in global affairs, social movements
against
poverty, exclusion or diversity in society; all these urgent societal
issues have winners and losers.

Additional Information Teaching Methods

Lectures, guest lectures, workgroups, viewing and analysing
documentaries and other audio-visual illustrations, text analysis,
in-class debates.

Method of Assessment

written assignments (e.g. take home exam and essays)

Literature

To be announced in the course manual (see CANVAS).

Additional Information Target Audience

First-year bachelor students in Cultural Anthropology and Development
Sociology. Also open as an elective course for Exchange Students.

Additional Information

This course is the last of a series of three courses: Core Themes in
Anthropology; b) History and Theory of Anthropology; and c) Challenges
of the 21st Century. In these three courses, the focus of anthropology
will be introduced, explained and discussed.

Recommended background knowledge

Active participation in "Core Themes in Anthropology" and "History and
Theory of Anthropology".