Undergraduate Module Descriptor

ANT1005: Introduction to Social Anthropology: Exploring Cultural Diversity

This module descriptor refers to the 2020/1 academic year.

Module Aims

You will gain a foundational knowledge of anthropological theory and concepts, and learn how to think critically and analytically about key questions and problems in studying the worlds of other people and our own. You will also start to appreciate the unique methods of ethnographic fieldwork, which are increasingly used in a variety of organisational and professional contexts.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

This module's assessment will evaluate your achievement of the ILOs listed here – you will see reference to these ILO numbers in the details of the assessment for this module.
On successfully completing the programme you will be able to:
Module-Specific Skills1. show a basic understanding of the extent and nature of human diversity and commonality as seen from a socio-cultural perspective;
2. show a basic understanding of the relationship between specific social and cultural forms in relation to broader global and historical processes;
3. demonstrate - in tutorials, formative work and in the exams - some facility in the use of the repertoire of key concepts and approaches of anthropological analysis.
4. display, in written and oral form, the ability to question cultural assumptions;
Discipline-Specific Skills5. critically evaluate contemporary anthropological and related texts;
6. display - in written and oral form - an understanding of the discipline's relation to, and difference from, from other approaches and explanations offered in the social sciences;
7. show an appreciation of key issues relevant to the contemporary world, and develop critical, comparative and cross-cultural insight;
Personal and Key Skills8. demonstrate transferable skills in formulating, researching and addressing focused questions;
9. prepare focused and comprehensive written and oral presentations, and in discussing ideas and interpretations with others in a clear and reasoned way;
10. plan and execute work independently and in collaboration with others; and
11. demonstrate skills in cross-cultural understanding, translation and comparison, which will be of advantage in a broad range of professional settings.

Indicative Reading List

This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.

Astuti, R. et al. (eds) 2011. Questions of Anthropology. Berg.

Barnard, A. and J. Spencer (eds) 1996. Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology. Routledge.

Boyarin, J. (ed.) 1994. Remapping Memory - The Politics of Timespace. Minneapolis and London, University of Minnesota Press

Carsten, J. (ed.), Cultures of Relatedness: new approaches to the study of kinship. Cambridge: CUP.

Cruikshank. 2005 Do Glaciers Listen?: Local Knowledge, Colonial Encounters, and Social Imagination. University of British Columbia Press.

Hutchinson, S. 1996. Nuer Dilemmas: coping with money, war, and the state. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Feld, S. and K. Basso (eds). 1997. Senses of Place.Santa Fe: School of American Research Press.

Gupta, A. and J. Ferguson (eds) 1997. Anthropological Locations: Boundaries and Grounds of a Field Science. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Kuper, A. 1996. Anthropology and Anthropologists: The Modern British School (3rd edition). London and New York: Routledge.

Moore, H.L. and T. Sanders (eds) 2001. Magical interpretations, material realities: modernity, witchcraft and the occult in postcolonial Africa. London: Routledge.

Sahlins, M 1985. Islands of History. Chicago: ChicagoUniversity Press.

Tiranagama, S. 2011. In My Mother’s House: Civil War in Sri Lanka. University of Pennsylvania Press.

ELE – http://vle.exeter.ac.uk/