Social Anthropology

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course offers a broad introduction to the study of social structure, from the smallest (family) to the largest (global economy) units of social organization. Beginning with the basic tools for kinship analysis, the class will read contemporary ethnographic essays that provide provocative new theoretical approaches to kinship and gender. We then turn to contemporary issues in the cultural construction of identity (particularly race, ethnicity, class, and nationality). Moving to the global economy, the course provides an introduction to classical social theory (Marx and Weber), followed by an introduction to modernization and dependency theories. Ethnographic examples deal with political economy, migration, and the international division of labor. Designed to give the student exposure to a number of world areas and a series of intellectual tools for analyzing social structure, the course examines patterns of human affiliation from the familial to the global.

COURSE PREREQUISITES

Before taking Anth 304, students should take Anthropology 103 (Introduction to Socio-Cultural Anthropology) or its equivalent. Anth 304 is designed for anthropology majors and minors only. It will not count for general education requirements, but it will count as general upper-division elective credit.

REQUIRED READINGS

All class materials are available on Blackboard (see below). You may either read these documents online or print off a copy for personal use.

CLASS REQUIREMENTS

Students taking this course Pass / No-pass are required to earn at least the equivalent of a 'C-' to pass the class. Anthropology majors and minors must take the class for a grade. Completion of the kinship exercise (5%, P/NP), the first term-test (30%), the second term test (30%) and the third term-test (35%) will form the basis for evaluating student performance.

Policy on illness, emergencies, extensions, and plagiarism

The H1N1 virus has spread through many colleges and universities across the country. If you feel ill (fever, sore throat, runny nose, headache, cough, aches), please stay home until you have been without fever for 24 hours without the use of fever-reducing medication. Let the instructor know about your illness. You will not be penalized for illness-related absences, and you will have the opportunity to make up missed assignments.

Whenever possible, requests for extensions on deadlines should be made over email or by telephone message ahead of the due date. Unexcused late papers and exams will lose one letter grade for each day past due except in the event of documented severe illness or emergency. Email submissions will be accepted only under emergency circumstances and then only to document a ‘time stamp.’ Students are responsible for turning in a hardcopy of their work; the instructor only grades on hardcopy. All work must be completed for students to receive a passing grade. Students with a documented disability needing accommodations in this course should immediately inform the instructor.

Plagiarism (intellectual theft) is a very serious academic offense. Any assignment containing plagiarized material will receive a failing grade. You are responsible for reading and understanding the department handout on plagiarism, which is available on Blackboard and on the Anthropology Department web site. Please ask the instructor if you have any questions about this information.

Blackboard

The course syllabus, readings, discussion questions, writing-suggestion documents, plagiarism information, assignment sheets, and test questions will be available on Blackboard. Students can access Blackboard at http://psuonline.pdx.edu/ using their Odin login username and password. If you do not have an Odin account, you can find out how to get one at https://www.account.pdx.edu. Use of Blackboard will be demonstrated on the first day of class. Please contact the instructor if you encounter difficulties in accessing this resource.

Kinship Diagram (5%, Pass/No-pass) due Monday, 12 October.

Students will draw two family trees of their own genealogy. The first diagram should use classical kinship conventions. The second diagram should emphasize more critical, creative, artistic, and innovative conceptualizations of family. Both diagrams will make clear the operative principles and their symbolic representations. Further instructions will be posted on Blackboard. (If you feel at all uncomfortable with the personal nature of this exercise, please ask the instructor for an alternative assignment.)

Term Test #1: Kinship and Family (30%) Take-home test, due Monday, 26 October.

The first term-test will cover material in the first section of the course (Kinship and Family). Students will write two short (2 page) essays. Test questions will be posted on Blackboard. Be sure to follow the formatting, citation, and reference guidelines set forth in the “Guide to writing in anthropology” and “Suggestions for writing short essays” documents posted on Blackboard.

Term Test #2: Power, Politics, and Identity (30%) Take-home test, due Monday, 16 November.

The second term-test will focus on materials from the second section of the course (Power, Politics, and Identity). Students will write two short (2 page) essays. Test questions will be posted on Blackboard. Be sure to follow the formatting, citation, and reference guidelines set forth on Blackboard.

Term Test #3: Political Economy (35%) Take-home test due by noon, Weds. 9 December, 141 Cramer Hall.

The third term-test will focus on materials presented in the last section of the class (Political Economy). Students will write two short (2 page) essays. Test questions will be posted on Blackboard. Be sure to follow the formatting, citation, and reference guidelines set forth on Blackboard.

COURSE OUTLINE

Section 1: Kinship and Family

The first section of the course provides an introduction to kinship theory, including terminology and kinship diagramming conventions. Readings consist of new approaches to kinship studies that challenge our assumptions about reproduction, personhood, marriage, parenthood, gender roles, and kinship relations.

Ortner, Sherry

1989 Introduction and Conclusion. In High Religion: A Cultural and Political History of Sherpa Buddhism. Pp. 3-18, 193-202. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Stone, Linda

1997 Gender, Reproduction, and Kinship In Kinship and Gender: An Introduction. Pp. 1-19. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press.

Collier, Jane and Sylvia Yanagisako

1987 Toward a Unified Analysis of Gender and Kinship In Gender and Kinship: Essays Toward a Unified Analysis. Collier and Yanagisako, eds. Pp. 14-50. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.

Franklin, Sarah and Susan McKinnon

2001 Introduction. In Relative Values: Reconfiguring Kinship Studies, Sarah Franklin and Susan McKinnon, eds. Pp. 1-25. Durham: Duke University Press.

Weismantel, Mary

1995 Making Kin: Kinship Theory and Zumbagua Adoptions. American Ethnologist 22(4):685-704.

Thompson, Charis

2001 Strategic Naturalizing: Kinship in an Infertility Clinic. In Relative Values: Reconfiguring Kinship Studies, Sarah Franklin and Susan McKinnon, eds. Pp. 175-202. Durham: Duke University Press.

Kapadia, Karin

1993 Marrying Money: Changing Preference and Practice in Tamil Marriage. Contributions to Indian Sociology 27(1):25-51.

Blackwood, Evelyn

2005 Wedding Bell Blues: Marriage, Missing Men, and Matrifocal Follies. American Ethnologist 32(1): 3-19.

Stack, Carol B.

1970 Domestic Networks: ‘Those You Count On.’ In All Our Kin: Strategies for Survival in a Black Community. Pp. 90-107. New York: Harper and Row.

Stacey, Judith

1997 The Neo-Family-Values Campaign In The Gender / Sexuality Reader: Culture, History, Political Economy. Lancaster and di Leonardo, eds. Pp. 453-470. New York: Routledge.

Edwards, Jane

2007 “Marriage is Sacred”: the Religious Right’s Arguments against “Gay Marriage” in Australia. Culture, Health and Sexuality 9(3): 247-261.

Read at least 3 of the following 5 short articles on gay marriage:

Stone, Linda

2004 Gay Marriage and Anthropology. Anthropology News 45(5): 10.

Lancaster, Roger

2004 Two Cheers for Gay Marriage. Anthropology News 45(6): 21, 24.

Peletz, Michael

2004 Discourse of Opposition to Marriage Equality. Anthropology News 45(6): 23-24.

Sprigg, Peter

2004 Questions and Answers: What’s Wrong with Letting Same-Sex Couples “Marry?” In Taking Sides: Clashing Views in Gender, Fourth Edition. Jacquelyn W. White, ed. Pp. 183-189. New York: McGraw-Hill.

American Psychological Association

2004 APA Policy Statement on Sexual Orientation, Parents, and Children. In Taking Sides: Clashing Views in Gender, Fourth Edition. Jacquelyn W. White, ed. Pp. 193-197. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Section 2: Power, Politics, and Identity

The second section of the course examines contemporary ways of viewing social organization at levels more complex than the family. Students will read theories about identity, with a focus on the cultural construction of race, class, ethnicity, and nationality in relationship with state and colonial power.

Said, Edward

1978 Latent and Manifest Orientalism. In Orientalism. pp. 201-225. New York: Vintage.

Anderson, Benedict

1991 Introduction and Census, Map, Museum In Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. pp. 1-7, 163-185. London: Verso.

Biolsi, Thomas

2007 Race Technologies. In A Companion to the Anthropology of Politics, David Nugent and Joan Vincent, eds. Pp. 400-417. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Rose, Nikolas

1999 Governing. In Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought. Pp. 15-60 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1999.

Ortner, Sherry

2006 Reading America: Preliminary Notes on Class and Culture. In Anthropology and Social Theory, pp. 19-41. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press.

Adams, Jane and D. Gorton

2006 Confederate Lane: Class, Race, and Ethnicity in the Mississippi Delta. American Ethnologist 33(2): 288-309.

Pelican, Michaela

2009 Complexities of Indigeneity and Autochthony: An African Example. American Ethnologist 36(1): 52-65.

Muehlmann, Shaylih

2008 “Spread Your Ass Cheeks”: And Other Things That Should Not Be Said in Indigenous Languages. American Ethnologist 35(1): 34-48.

Section 3: Political Economy

This section addresses economic and political inequalities on the national and global level. We begin with a look the classical social theorists Marx and Weber and the more recent modernization and dependency theories. We then examine ethnographic cases that focus on the international division of labor and its impact on social relations at the transnational, national, factory, neighborhood, and household levels.

Marx, Karl

1971 [1848] Manifesto of the Communist Party In On Revolution. Padover, ed. Pp. 79-107. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company.

Weber, Max

2002 [1904-5] Asceticism and the Spirit of Capitalism In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Pp. 103-125. Los Angeles: Roxbury Publishing Co.

Frank, Andre Gundar

1966 The Development of Underdevelopment. Monthly Review 18:17-31.

Barnett, Tony

1975 The Gezira Scheme: Production of Cotton and the Reproduction of Underdevelopment In Beyond the Sociology of Development: Economy and Society in Latin America and Africa. Oxaal, Barnett and Booth, eds. Pp. 183-207. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Fernandez-Kelly, Maria Patricia

1983 Mexican Border Industrialization, Female Labor Force Participation and Migration In Women, Men and the International Division of Labor. Nash and Fernandez-Kelly, eds. Pp. 205-223. Albany: SUNY Press.

Harrison, Faye V.

1997 The Gendered Politics and Violence of Structural Adjustment In Situated Lives: Gender and Culture in Everyday Life. Lamphere, Ragone and Zavella, eds. Pp. 451-468. New York: Routledge.

Nicholson, Melanie

2006 Without their children: Rethinking motherhood among transnational migrant women. Social Text 24(3): 13-33.

Sassen, Saskia

2002 Global Cities and Survival Circuits. In Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy. Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild, eds. Pp. 254-274. New York: Metropolitan Books.

COURSE SCHEDULE

Week	Day	Date	Month	Readings to be discussed, assignments due, films
1	M	28	September	Handout: Syllabus
	W	30		Read: Ortner
	F	2	October	Read: Stone
2	M	5		Read: Collier and Yanagisako
	W	7		Read: Franklin & McKinnon
	F	9		Read: Weismantel
3	M	12		Due: Kinship diagram
	W	14		Read: Thompson
	F	16		Read: Kapadia Film: Dadi’s Family
4	M	19		Read: Blackwood, Stack
	W	21		Read: Stacy
	F	23		Read: Edwards, 3 of 5 short articles Review for Term Test #1
5	M	26		Due: Term Test #1 Film: Cannibal Tours
	W	28		Read: Said
	F	30		Read: Anderson (2)
6	M	2	November	Read: Biolsi
	W	4		Read: Rose
	F	6		Read: Ortner, Adams & Gorton
7	M	9		Read: Pelican
	W	11		PSU Closed: Veterans Day Holiday
	F	13		Read: Muehlmann Review for Term Test #2
8	M	16		Due: Term Test #2
	W	18		Read: Marx
	F	20		Read: Weber
9	M	23		Read: Frank
	W	25		Read: Barnett
	F	27		PSU Closed: Thanksgiving Day Holiday
10	M	30		Read: Fernandez-Kelly, Harrison
	W	2	December	Read: Nicholson, Sassen Review for Term Test #3
	F	4		Film: Maquilapolis
11	W	9		Due: Term-test #3 (Hand in to Anth Dept by noon.)