Simon Fraser University
Engaging the World

Course Outlines

Fall 2020 - SA 201W D100

Anthropology and Contemporary Life (A) (4)

Class Number: 2603

Delivery Method: Remote

Overview

  • Course Times + Location:

    Sep 9 – Dec 8, 2020: Wed, 2:30–5:20 p.m.
    Burnaby

  • Instructor:

    Natasha Ferenczi
    nferencz@sfu.ca
    Office Hours: Mo/Th 10:00-11:00 (or by appointment) via BB Collaborate Ultra

  • Prerequisites:

    Recommended: SA 101.

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

An introduction to the anthropological perspective as applied to the organization of everyday life in contemporary settings. Introduces positivist, interpretive, and critical interpretive approaches to the analysis of social actions, identities, and values as enacted in space and time. Writing.

COURSE DETAILS:

“Uncertain and unprecedented times” are descriptors used often lately in describing life today. Global economic and climate instabilities, pandemic policies, and ever-increasing transnational movements of people, goods, knowledges and technologies, occur alongside mass social justice movements, challenging the centrality of the nation-state and systemic racial, ethnic and class discrimination, and giving rise to new analytical contexts. In what ways can anthropological perspectives, and the field’s history of interdisciplinary theoretical approaches and long-term ethnographic field research, bring nuanced insights and understanding to people’s contemporary experiences and concerns with these changing realities and emerging precarities?

In this class, we will discuss and analyze a variety of anthropological approaches to addressing class, ethnic, and racial discrimination, citizenship, addiction, neoliberalizing processes, relationships between human and nonhuman beings, health discourse, and more, highlighting the plasticity of ethnographic approaches in responding and adapting to changing human experiences and concerns. The ability to critically reflect upon and re-imagine the discipline, maintains this adaptability that works to strengthen the relevance and ethical applications of anthropological knowledge and furthers understandings of power relations and social agency, thus extending the capacity for social advocacy. As a class we will engage in profound discussion and analyses of contemporary life and consider the ways anthropology can further our understanding of current social realities and precarities.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

  • To be able to identify and articulate what is distinctive about interpretive anthropological approaches and the kinds of insights such approaches can generate to further our understanding of social issues, including dialectics between individual agency and social structure, and subjectivity and modes of governance.
  • To profoundly recognize the significance of critical reflexivity and the politics of representation, identify knowledge politics implicit in “common-sense” understandings and everyday concepts, and to demonstrate capacity for reflexive thinking and active and engaged listening, by actively participating in class discussions and activities.
  • To develop critical thinking and analytical skills and creative academic writing skills, by closely examining a contemporary cultural context in critical analytical depth throughoriginal on-line and library research, to interpret, analyze and articulate intersections of embodied, social, historical, economic and political issues.

Grading

  • Facilitation 10%
  • Reading quizzes (x 2) 20%
  • Critical annotation 15%
  • Auto-ethnography 10%
  • Final essay: abstract and outline 5%
  • Final essay 25%
  • Participation 15%

NOTES:

Grading: Where a final exam is scheduled and the student does not write the exam or withdraw from the course before the deadline date, an N grade will be assigned. Unless otherwise specified on the course syllabus, all graded assignments for this course must be completed for a final grade other than N to be assigned. An N is considered as an F for the purposes of scholastic standing.

Grading System: The Undergraduate Course Grading System is as follows:

A+ (95-100) | A (90-94) | A- (85-89) | B+ (80-84) | B (75-79) | B- (70-74) | C+ (65-69) | C (60-64) | C- (55-59) | D (50-54) | F (0-49) | N*
*N standing to indicate the student did not complete course requirements

Academic Dishonesty and Misconduct Policy: The Department of Sociology & Anthropology follows SFU policy in relation to grading practices, grade appeals (Policy T 20.01) and academic dishonesty and misconduct procedures (S10.01‐S10.04). Unless otherwise informed by your instructor in writing, in graded written assignments you must cite the sources you rely on and include a bibliography/list of references, following an instructor-approved citation style.  It is the responsibility of students to inform themselves of the content of SFU policies available on the SFU website.

Centre for Accessible Learning: Students with hidden or visible disabilities who believe they may need classroom or exam accommodations are encouraged to register with the SFU Centre for Accessible Learning (1250 Maggie Benston Centre) as soon as possible to ensure that they are eligible and that approved accommodations and services are implemented in a timely fashion.

Materials

MATERIALS + SUPPLIES:

Please see SFU Bookstore website for information on textbook purchase options.

REQUIRED READING:

Garcia, A. (2010). The Pastoral Clinic: Addiction and Dispossession along the Rio Grande. University of California Press.

This title is available for free online through the SFU Library here.

Kohn, E. (2013). How Forests Think: Toward An Anthropology Beyond The Human. University of California Press.

This title is available for free online through the SFU Library here.

Other readings will be posted on Canvas.

Registrar Notes:

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY: YOUR WORK, YOUR SUCCESS

SFU’s Academic Integrity web site http://www.sfu.ca/students/academicintegrity.html is filled with information on what is meant by academic dishonesty, where you can find resources to help with your studies and the consequences of cheating.  Check out the site for more information and videos that help explain the issues in plain English.

Each student is responsible for his or her conduct as it affects the University community.  Academic dishonesty, in whatever form, is ultimately destructive of the values of the University. Furthermore, it is unfair and discouraging to the majority of students who pursue their studies honestly. Scholarly integrity is required of all members of the University. http://www.sfu.ca/policies/gazette/student/s10-01.html

TEACHING AT SFU IN FALL 2020

Teaching at SFU in fall 2020 will be conducted primarily through remote methods. There will be in-person course components in a few exceptional cases where this is fundamental to the educational goals of the course. Such course components will be clearly identified at registration, as will course components that will be “live” (synchronous) vs. at your own pace (asynchronous). Enrollment acknowledges that remote study may entail different modes of learning, interaction with your instructor, and ways of getting feedback on your work than may be the case for in-person classes. To ensure you can access all course materials, we recommend you have access to a computer with a microphone and camera, and the internet. In some cases your instructor may use Zoom or other means requiring a camera and microphone to invigilate exams. If proctoring software will be used, this will be confirmed in the first week of class.

Students with hidden or visible disabilities who believe they may need class or exam accommodations, including in the current context of remote learning, are encouraged to register with the SFU Centre for Accessible Learning (caladmin@sfu.ca or 778-782-3112).