COURSE DESCRIPTION:

When people jokingly assert that the world gets smaller every day, they often refer to the modern conditions of intercultural communication and international interdependence. Should we consider such globalization a liberating phenomenon, or a cultural, political and economic menace, or a bit of both? The first half of this course investigates global patterns in economics with a focus on food systems. Beginning with a brief history of world connections, we explore colonial and post-colonial systems of economic imperialism, culminating in a discussion of agricultural policy and world hunger. The second half of the course examines hybrid identities and the commodification of “traditional” cultures in the context of perpetually shifting populations. Seeking new understandings of place, space, and belonging, we examine travel and displacement among tourists, migrants, and refugees. Through readings, lectures, films, and discussions, the course offers a comprehensive anthropological understanding of globalization, transnationalism, and migration.

COURSE PREREQUISITES:

Previous course work in socio-cultural anthropology is strongly recommended.

REQUIRED READINGS:

Rosset, Peter M

2006 Food is Different: Why We Must Get the WTO Out of Agriculture. London: Zed Books.

All other class materials are available on Blackboard (see below).

CLASS REQUIREMENTS:

Students taking this course pass-no-pass are required to earn at least a 'C-' to pass the class. For undergraduates, class participation and discussion leadership (5%), a term test (45%), and two short essays (25% each) will form the basis for evaluating performance. For graduate students, the work required above (70%) and a term paper (30%) will form the basis for evaluating 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 at 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

Class readings, the course syllabus, the plagiarism document, assignment sheets, and discussion questions will be available on Blackboard. You may read the materials online or print copies for use during class discussions.

All students can access Blackboard with an Odin account. If you do not have an Odin account, you can sign up to get one at https://www.account.pdx.edu. Use your Odin username and password to login to Blackboard at http://psuonline.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.

Choice of Term Test #1 or Term Test #2 (45%)

Term Test #1: Due Monday May 10^th in class.

Term Test #2: Due Tuesday June 8^th. Please turn this test in at the Anthropology Department (141 Cramer Hall) by noon.

The class is divided into two halves: sections 1-4 and sections 5-8. At the end of each half of the class, a test covering that half’s material will be held. Students may choose which of the two term tests they wish to take. For the half of the class where a student does not write a term test, s/he will write two short essays (explained below).

Term tests are take-home exams. A choice of test questions will be posted on Blackboard at least a week before the test due date. Tests and papers should be carefully edited and formally written; please consult the “Writing” materials on Blackboard for conventions for formatting, referencing, and citing.

Two four-page essays (25% each)

For the half of the class in which a student does not write a term test, s/he will write two short essays. Essay topics will be assigned for sections 2-8 of the class and will focus on the readings in that particular section. Essays are due roughly a week after we finish covering the section material.

· First half of the class: You will write two essays on sections 2, 3, and 4. Choose which two of the three sections you wish to write about. Section 2: due Mon 19 April; Section 3: due Mon 3 May; Section 4: due Wed 12 May.

· Second half of the class: You will write two essays on sections 5, 6, 7, and 8. Choose which two of the four sections you wish to write about. Section 5: due Weds 19 May; Section 6: due Weds 26 May; Section 7: due Wed 2 June; Section 8: Due Wed 9 June. Turn papers for Section 8 in at the Anthropology Dept. by noon.

Discussion leadership and class participation (5%)

Students will be assigned responsibility for facilitating discussion on particular articles throughout the course. Articles will be designated ahead of time.

Class participation forms an important aspect of the learning experience in this upper-level class, and is therefore both expected and required. Participation points will be assessed through short in-class free-writes and/or pre-writes on specific articles. These informal, hand-written thought-pieces will be evaluated on a check/ check-plus/ check-minus basis. Students who do the reading and pay attention in class will easily achieve a passing grade on these assessments.

Students with more than 3 unexcused absences will receive no points for class participation. Legitimate reasons to miss class are few and dire, and should if at all possible be reported to the instructor before the start of the class period.

Term paper (graduate students only) due Weds 5 Dec, 4:30 PM, Anth. Dept.

Each graduate student will write a 15-20 page research paper on a topic of his or her choice. Further instructions will be posted on Blackboard and discussed separately.

COURSE OUTLINE:

SECTION 1: Introduction

Ghosh, Amitav

1986 The Imam and the Indian. Granta (20) 135-146.

Appadurai, Arjun

1990 Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy. Public Culture 2(2): 1-24.

Gupta, Akhil and James Ferguson

1992 Beyond ‘Culture’: Space, Identity and the Politics of Difference. Cultural Anthropology 7(1): 6-23.

Freeman, Carla

2001 Is local: global as feminine: masculine? Rethinking the gender of globalization. Signs 26 (4): 1007-37.

SECTION 2: Colonialism and the history of world connections

Fernandez-Armesto, Felipe

2002 Chapter 7: Challenging Evolution. Food and Ecological Exchange. In Near a Thousand Tables: A History of Food. 163-186. New York: The Free Press.

Wolff, Robert S.

1998 Da Gama’s Blundering: Trade Encounters in Africa and Asia during the European ‘Age of Discovery,’ 1450-1520. The History Teacher 31(3):297-318.

Maskiell, Michelle

2002 Consuming Kashmir: Shawls and Empires, 1500-2000. Journal of World History 13(1):27-65.

Film: The Couple in the Cage

SECTION 3: Neo-imperialism

Miyoshi, Masao

1993 A Borderless World? From Colonialism to Transnationalism and the Decline of the Nation-State. Critical Inquiry 19(4):726-751.

Escobar, Arturo

1988 Power and Visibility: Development and the Invention and Management of the Third World. Cultural Anthropology 3(4): 428-443.

Anderson, Sarah and John Cavanagh, with Thea Lee

2005 Chapter 4: Who’s Driving Globalization? In Field Guide to the Global Economy. Pp. 66-95. New York: The New Press.

Schaeffer, Robert K.

2003 Chapter 5: Debt Crisis and Globalization. In Understanding Globalization: The Social Consequences of Political, Economic, and Environmental Change, Second Edition. Pp. 95-117. New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

Schaeffer, Robert K.

2003 Chapter 9: Free Trade Agreements. In Understanding Globalization: The Social Consequences of Political, Economic, and Environmental Change, Second Edition. Pp. 217-250. New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

Gregory, Steven

2007 Infrapolitics. In A Companion to the Anthropology of Politics. David Nugent and Joan Vincent, eds. Pp. 282-302. Oxford: Blackwell.

Molé, Noelle J.

2010 Precarious Subjects: Anticipating Neoliberalism in Northern Italy’s Workplace. American Anthropologist 112(1): 38-53.

SECTION 4: World food systems

Schaeffer, Robert K.

2003 Chapter 7: Technology, Food, and Hunger. In Understanding Globalization: The Social Consequences of Political, Economic, and Environmental Change, Second Edition. Pp. 153-190. New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

Film: The Future of Food

Rosset, Peter M

2006 Food is Different: Why We Must Get the WTO Out of Agriculture. London: Zed Books.

Raynolds, Laura T

2002 Consumer/ Producer Links in Fair Trade Coffee Networks. Sociologia Ruralis 42 (4): 404-424.

Read one of the following two articles:

Lind, David and Elizabeth Barham

2004 The Social Life of the Tortilla. Agriculture and Human Value 21: 47-60.

Pilcher, Jeffrey M.

2005 Industrial Tortillas and Folkloric Pepsi: The Nutritional Consequences of Hybrid Cuisines in Mexico. In The Cultural Politics of Food and Eating: A Reader, James L. Watson and Melissa L. Caldwell, eds. Pp. 235-250. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

SECTION 5: Identities: local, national, and global

Anderson, Benedict

1994 Exodus. Critical Inquiry 20 (2):314-327.

Fong, Vanessa

2004 Filial Nationalism among Chinese Teenagers with Global Identities. American Ethnologist 31(4): 631-648.

Decena, Carlos Ulises, Michele G. Shedlin, and Angela Martinez

2006 “Los hombres no mandan aqui”: Narrating immigrant genders and sexualities in New York. Social Text 24(3): 36-54.

Muehlmann, Shaylih

2009 How Do Real Indians Fish? Neoliberal Multiculturalism and Contested Indigeneities in the Colorado Delta. American Anthropologist 111(4):468-479.

SECTION 6: Tourism and the commodification of culture

Shiner, Larry

1994 “Primitive Fakes,” “Tourist Art” and the Ideology of Authenticity. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 52(2):225-234.

Volkman, Toby Alice

1990 Visions and revisions: Toraja culture and the tourist gaze. American Ethnologist 17(1): 91-110.

Film: Cannibal Tours

O’Carroll, Cliona

2005 ‘Cold beer, warm hearts’: Community, belonging and desire in Irish pubs in Berlin. In Drinking Cultures: Alcohol and Identity, Thomas M. Wilson, ed. Pp. 43-64. Oxford: Berg.

Read 1 of the following 2:

Hoskins, Janet

2002 Predatory Voyeurs: Tourists and ‘Tribal Violence’ in remote Indonesia. American Ethnologist 29(4): 797-828.

Little, Walter

2004 Outside of Social Movements: Dilemmas of Indigenous Handicrafts Vendors in Guatemala. American Ethnologist 31(1): 43-59.

SECTION 7: Diaspora and migration

Clifford, James

1994 Diasporas. Cultural Anthropology 9(3): 302-338.

Read 1 of the following 2 essays:

Constable, Nicole

1999 At Home, but not at Home: Filipina Narratives of Ambivalent Returns. Cultural Anthropology 14(2): 203-229.

Reynolds, Jennifer F. and Marjorie Faulstich Orellana

2009 New Immigrant Youth Interpreting in White Public Space. American Anthropologist 111(2): 211-223.

Read 1 of the following 2 essays:

Gardner, Andrew M.

2008 Strategic Transnationalism: Indian Diasporic Elite in Contemporary Bahrain. City and Society 20(1): 54-78.

Ong, Aihwa

2008 Cyberpublics and Diaspora Politics among Transnational Chinese. In The Anthropology of Globalization. Jonathan Xavier Inda and Renato Rosaldo, eds. pp. 167-183. Oxford: Blackwell.

SECTION 8: Displacement

Malkki, Liisa

1992 National Geographic: The Rooting of Peoples and the Territorialization of National Identity among Scholars and Refugees. Cultural Anthropology 7(1): 24-44.

Menon, Ritu and Kamla Bhasin

1996 Abducted women, the state and questions of honour: Three perspectives on the recovery operation in Post-Partition India. In Embodied Violence: Communalising women’s Sexuality in South Asia, Kumari Jayawardena and Malathi de Alwis, eds. London: Zed Books.

Linke, Uli

1997 Gender Difference, Violent Imagination: Blood, Race, Nation. American Anthropologist 99(3): 559-573.

Adams, Vincanne, Taslim Van Hattum, and Diana English

2009 Chronic Disaster Syndrome: Displacement, Disaster Capitalism, and the Eviction of the Poor from New Orleans. American Ethnologist 36(4): 615-636.

COURSE SCHEDULE:

Week	Day	Date	Month	Readings, films, assignments due:
1	M	29	March	Handout: Syllabus
	W	31		Read: Ghosh, Appadurai
	F	2	April	Read: Gupta & Ferguson
2	M	5		Read: Freeman, Fernandez-Armesto
	W	7		Read: Wolff Film: The Couple in the Cage
	F	9		Read: Maskiell
3	M	12		Read: Miyoshi, Escobar
	W	14		Read: Anderson et al, Schaeffer 5
	F	16		Film: The Future of Food
4	M	19		Due: Essay Option #2 Read: Schaeffer 9
	W	21		Read: Gregory
	F	23		Read: Molé
5	M	26		Read: Schaeffer 7, Rosset beginning to p. 35
	W	28		Read: Rosset p. 36 to end.
	F	30		Read: Raynolds
6	M	3	May	Due: Essay Option #3 Read: Either Lind & Barham OR Pilcher
	W	5		Read: Anderson
	F	7		Read: Fong, Decena et al.
7	M	10		Due: Term Test #1 Film: Cannibal Tours
	W	12		Due: Essay Option # 4 Read: Muehlmann
	F	14		Read: Shiner, Volkman
8	M	17		Read: O’Caroll
	W	19		Due: Essay Option #5 Read Hoskins OR Little
	F	21		Read: Clifford
9	M	24		Read: Constable OR Reynolds & Orellana
	W	26		Due: Essay Option #6 Read: Gardner OR Ong
	F	28		Read: Malkki
10	M	31		PSU Closed: Memorial Day Holiday
	W	2	June	Due: Essay Option #7 Read: Menon & Bhasin, Linke
	F	4		Read: Adams et al.
11	T	8		Due: Term Test #2 at Anth Dept by noon
	W	9		Due: Essay Option #8 at Anth Dept by noon Due: Grad student term paper, Anth Dept by noon