70025 - Cultural Anthropology

Academic Year 2022/2023

Learning outcomes

Students will better grasp the role of social and cultural diversities in making identities in contemporary world and will look at them with enhanced curiosity. They will also be able to critically assess the constructed character of social and cultural values, norms, conventions and patterns. Finally, they will be aware of the paradoxes and of the epistemological problems inherent anthropological knowledge and field research. Main contents: Foundations of cultural anthropology; ethnocentrisms and cultural relativisms; meanings of cultural diversities; common senses and local ideologies; methods of ethnographic research.

Course contents

This general course in social and cultural anthropology is designed to give a first introduction to the historical and contemporary (institutional, regional, theoretical and methodological) transformations which have shaped the discipline over the course of the past century, in order to inspire students to think critically about humanity and human societies in general, and how knowledge about ourselves, other people and the social and natural world(s) we live in are produced and constructed. The course will equip students to approach today’s world from new perspectives. It will train students in ethnographic field research in order to design and conduct ethically-sound, participatory and theoretically-informed qualitative research with people in very different settings, including vulnerable subjects.

The course is organised around groups of lectures, each dedicated to one specific theme and grounded in ethnographic case-studies from around the world, in order to give students an overview of the historical and contemporary breadth of the discipline.

The groups of lectures are organised as follows:

- Introduction: What is it Anthropology Today and What it is For?

- Anthropology and the Imperial Encounter (1): Schools, Histories & Peoples of the Discipline.

- Ethnographic Fieldwork and Writing: Methods and Ethics.

- Material Anthropology and Museum Ethnography: Objects & their Agency.

- Special focus on museums with student presentations

- Humanity and Personhood.

- The Anthropology of Nature and the Anthropocene (1): Nature(s) & Culture(s) Revisited.

- The Anthropology of Nature and the Anthropocene (2): Crisis & Environmental Ruins.

- Anthropology of the Mediterranean & the Anthropocene + Guest lecture on the Mediterranean.

- Anthropology and the Imperial Encounter (2): Politics, Gender & Race.

- Curses, Animals, Pathogens & Co: Anthropology, Health and Medicine.

- Student Presentations Session (on chosen monograph from course bibliography).

Readings/Bibliography

(1) Monographs (One monograph to choose for essay)

- Ben-Yehoyada, Naor (2019) Incorporare il Mediterraneo. Formazione regionale tra Sicilia e Tunisia nel secondo dopoguerra. Meltemi Ed.

- Fassin, Didier (2013) La forza dell’ordine. Antropologia della polizia nelle periferie urbane. Bologna: La Linea.

- Kohn, Eduardo (2021). Come pensano le foreste. Antropologia oltre l'umano. Nottetempo.

- Mattalucci, Claudia (2017) Antropologia e riproduzione. Attese, fratture e ricomposizioni della procreazione e della genitorialità in Italia. Raffaello Cortina Ed.

- Ong, Aihwa (2005) Da rifugiati a cittadini. Pratiche di governo nella nuova America. Raffaello Cortina Ed.

- Pinelli, Barbara (2019) Migranti e rifugiate. Antropologia, genere e politica. Raffaello Cortina Ed.

- Schmidt, Donatella (2018) Tra sciamani, rivitalizzazione e turismo. Storia di un fenomeno di globalizzazione religiosa tra i Guaranì del sud del Brasile. CLEUP. Da leggere assieme a: Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo (1998) Prospettivismo cosmologico in Amazzonia e altrove. Quattro lezioni tenute presso il Department of Social Anthropology, Cambridge University (febbraio-marzo 1998). Quodlibet.

- Tsing, Anna (2021) Il fungo alla fine del mondo. La possibilità di vivere nelle rovine del capitalismo. Keller.

(2) Bibliography of the course (available with instructions on Virtuale)


Lectures 1, 2 & 3: Antropologia sociale e culturale: che disciplina è e a che cosa serve nel 2022?

- Alonso Bejarano, Carolina, Lucia López Juárez, Mirian A. Mijangos García and Daniel M. Goldstein, 2019, Decolonizing Ethnography: Undocumented Immigrants and New Directions in Social Science. Duke University Press. (Intro)

- Hansen, Brooke and Jack Rossen (2017) 'Activist Anthropology with the Haudenosaunee: Theoretical and Practical Insights from the Two Row Wampum Renewal Campaign', Anthropology in Action: Journal for Applied Anthropology in Policy and Practice 24(3).

- Jobson, Ryan Cecil (2020). 'Year in Review: The Case for Letting Anthropology Burn: Sociocultural Anthropology in 2019'. American Anthropologist 122(2): 259-271. DOI: 10.1111/aman.13398

- Mazzeo, Agata (2017) 'Disastri invisibili e pratiche di attivismo'. Antropologia 4(1).

- Tassan, Manuela (2021) ‘Ripensare la giustizia ambientale. Prospettive antropologiche su ambienti, nature e disuguaglianze nell’era dell’Antropocene'. Antropologia 8(2).

- Vietti, Francesco (2019) ‘Aspettando Teaching Cultures. Prospettive pedagogiche e pratiche didattiche per un’antropologia come esperienza', Antropologia 6(2).

Lectures 4, 5 & 6: Antropologia e imperialismo (1): storia, scuole di pensiero e movimenti


- Behar, Ruth & Deborah Gordon (eds) (1996) Women Writing Culture. University of California Press (intro). Altro link utile: McGuirk, Siobhan (2018) 'AnthroBites: Feminist Anthropology.' AnthroPod, Fieldsights, March 15. https://culanth.org/fieldsights/anthrobites-feminist-anthropology.

- Dibley, Ben et al. (2017) 'Ethnology, Governance, and Greater France', in Ben Dibley et al. Collecting, Ordering, Governing. Duke University Press.

- Foks, Freddy (2018) 'Bronislaw Malinowski, “Indirect Rule,” and the Colonial Politics of Functionalist Anthropology, ca. 1925–1940', Comparative Studies in Society and History, 60(1), 35-57.

- Kuper, Adam (2018) 'Anthropology: Scope of the Discipline', in Hilary Callan (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology. John Wiley & Sons, DOI: 10.1002/9781118924396.wbiea1591.

- Pels, Peter (2011) 'Global 'Experts' and 'African' Minds: Tanganyika Anthropology as Public and Secret Service, 1925-1961', Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 17: 788-810.

-Turnbull, Paul (2008) 'British Anthropological Thought in Colonial Practice: The Appropriation of Indigenous Australian Bodies, 1860-1880', in Bronwen Douglas & Chris Ballard (eds) Foreign Bodies: Oceania and the Science of Race 1750–1940. ANU Press (Chapter 4).

Lectures 7, 8 & 9: Etnografia e Ricerca di Campo: Metodologia, Pratiche, Etica

Codici etici di riferimento per la disciplina (alcuni esempi):

- Codice etico, Società Italiana di Antropologia Culturale (SIAC): https://www.siacantropologia.it/codice-etico/

- Ethics and Methods, American Anthropological Association (AAA): https://www.americananthro.org/ethics-and-methods

- EthNav, Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK (ASA): https://www.theasa.org/ethics/ethnav.phtml

- Alonso Bejarano, Carolina, Lucia López Juárez, Mirian A. Mijangos García and Daniel M. Goldstein, 2019, Decolonizing Ethnography: Undocumented Immigrants and New Directions in Social Science. Duke University Press. (Intro)

- Berry, Maya J., Claudia Chávez Argüelles, Shanya Cordis, Sarah Ihmoud, and Elizabeth Velásquez Estrada. 2017. 'Toward a Fugitive Anthropology: Gender, Race, and Violence in the Field', Cultural Anthropology 32(4): 537–565. https://doi.org/10.14506/ca32.4.05.

- Brightman, Marc and Vanessa Grotti (2019), 'The Ethics of Anthropology', in Ron Iphofen (ed.) Handbook of Research Ethics and Scientific Integrity, Cham : Springer.

- Fusaschi, Michela (2021) ‘Genealogie femministe ed etnografia critica di genere’, Etnografia e ricerca qualitativa Rivista quadrimestrale" 1/2021, pp. 121-130, doi: 10.3240/100511

-Piasere, Leonardo (2020) ‘Le nuove sfide all’antropologia. L’etnografia nell’era del suo successo e del suo (quasi-)decesso’, Antropologia Pubblica 6(1):171-86. ISSN 2531-8799

- Sbraccia A. e Vianello F. (2016) Introduzione. Carcere, ricerca sociologica, etnografia’, Etnografia e ricerca qualitativa, 2, 183-210.

- Scego, Igiaba e Rino Bianchi (2014) Roma negata. Percorsi postcoloniali nella città. Ediesse.

Lectures 10 e 11: Antropologia museale e etnografia materiale: ‘cose’, agency e patrimonializzazione

- Fiorin, Fausto (2020) 'Perché dobbiamo decolonizzare i musei'. Arttribune. https://www.artribune.com/arti-visive/2020/04/decolonizzare-musei/

- Gravano, Viviana e Giulia Grechi (2020) 'Mostrare una collezione coloniale. Riflessioni sul futuro riallestimento al Museo delle Civiltà di Roma. Intervista a Rosa Anna Di Lella'. Archivio è potere - Roots & Routes X(33).

- Herle, Anita (2016) ‘Anthropology Museums and Museum Anthropology’. Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Anthropology. https://www.anthroencyclopedia.com/entry/anthropology-museums-and-museum-anthropology

- Panico, Mario (2021) 'Chi difende i monumenti? Appunti su retorica e congelamento della memoria.' Roots & Routes XI(35).

- Peers, Laura & Alison Brown (2003) ‘Introduction’, in Laura Peers & Alison Brown (eds) Museums and Source Communities: A Routledge Reader. London & NY: Routledge.

- Rubenstein, Steven Lee (2007) ‘Circulation, Accumulation, and the Power of Shuar Shrunken Heads’, Cultural Anthropology 22(3).

Lecture 12: Focus MUSEI: Presentazioni studenti

Lectures 13, 14 e 15: Umani, non-umani e il concetto di persona.

- Brightman, Marc, Vanessa Grotti & Olga Ulturgasheva (2012) ‘Introduction: Animism and Invisible Worlds: The Place of Non-humans in Indigenous Ontologies’, in Brightman, Marc, Vanessa Grotti & Olga Ulturgasheva (eds) Animism in Ranforest and Tundra: Personhood, Animals, Plants and Things in Contemporary Amazonia and Siberia. Berghahn.

- Ulturgasheva, Olga (2017) ‘Ghosts of the Gulag in the Eveny World of the Dead’, The Polar Journal.

- Willerslev, Rane (2004) ‘Not Animal, Not Not-Animal: Hunting, Imitation and Empathetic Knowledge Among the Siberian Yukaghirs’, Journal or the Royal Anthropological Institute 10(3).

Lectures 16 e 17: Antropologia della natura, dell’ambiente e dell’antropocene (1): natura/e e cultura/e

- Borgnino, Emanuela (2020) ‘Transported Landscapes. Piante, persone e paesaggi in viaggio tra gli oceani (Hawai’i e Oceania)’, in Adriano Favole (a cura di) L’Europa d’Oltremare. Raffaello Cortina Ed., pp. 43-58.

- Breda, Nadia (2021) ‘Prefazione a Oltre natura e cultura’, in Philippe Descola (2021) Oltre natura e cultura. R. Cortina Ed., pp. 11-24.

- Cabral de Oliveira, Joana (2020) 'Vegetable Temporalities: Life Cycles, Maturation and Death in an Amerindian Ethnography', Vibrant 17.

- Cometti, Geremia (2020) ‘A Cosmopolitical Ethnography of a Changing Climate Among the Q’ero of the Peruvian Andes’, Anthropos -Freiburg-, Richarz Publikations-service GMBH, 2020, 115 (1), pp.37-52.

- Descola, Philippe (2009) ‘Human Nature(s)’. Social Anthropology 17(2).

- Lai, Franco (2005) ‘Rappresentazioni della natura in un rito magico della Sardegna sudorientale’, LARES LXX1(3): 633-44.

Lectures 18 e 19: Antropologia della natura, dell’ambiente e dell’antropocene (2): crisi e rovine ambientali

- Besky, Sarah & Alex Blanchette (2019) ‘Introduction: The Fragility of Work’, in Sarah Besky and Alex Blanchette (eds) How Nature Works: Rethinking Labor on a Troubled Planet. University of New Mexico Press.

- Lai, Franco (2011) 'Paesaggi abbandonati in Sardegna. Per una antropologia del "terzo paesaggio"', in Franco Lai e Nadia Breda (a cura di) Antropologia del terzo paesaggio. CISU: Roma, pp. 11-30.

- Falconieri, Irene (2021) ‘Scarti differenziali. Pratiche di attivismo e governance dei rifiuti in un contesto industriale siciliano’, Antropologia 8(2).

- Langwick, Stacey Ann (2018) 'A Politics of Habitability: Plants, Healing, and Sovereignty in a Toxic World'', Cultural Anthropology 33(3): 415-43.

- Roosth, Sophia (2016) '"Ruin." Theorizing the Contemporary', Fieldsights, https://culanth.org/fieldsights/ruin.

Lecture 20: Antropologia della natura, dell’ambiente e dell’antropocene (3): Mediterraneo, confini e trasformazioni sociali

- Breda, Nadia (2012) ‘La cattiva strada. Risorse contestate e disagio di uomini e ambiente in Veneto e dintorni’, in Amalia Rossi e Lorenzo D'Angelo (a cura di) Antropologia, risorse naturali e conflitti ambientali. Mimesis Eterotopie Ed.

- Pievani, Telmo e Mauro Varotto (2021) Viaggio nell'Italia dell'Antropocene: La geografia visionaria del nostro futuro. (Introduzione.

- Raffaetà, Roberta (2019) ‘Tutti i colori del verde: Il ruolo del verde urbano nei processi di cittadinanza nella città di Bolzano’, Archivio Antropologico Mediterraneo Anno XXII, 21(1).

Lecture 21: Focus MEDITERRANEO E ANTROPOCENE: Guest lecture.

Lectures 22 & 23: Focus Mediterraneo: Antropologia regionale (argomenti scelti dagli studenti)

- Ben-Yehoyada, Naor e Giovanna Fiume (2016) ‘A proposito di “A Companion to Mediterranean History”’, Quaderni Storici 3.

- Ferini, Mattia (2020) 'Ibn al-Mukhayem. Esclusione e soggettività dei rifugiati palestinesi in Cisgiordania', Medea, 6(1). https://doi.org/10.13125/medea-4422.

- Pusceddu, Antonio Maria (2020) ‘Stato, volontariato e carità. Concezioni e pratiche redistributive in una città del Mezzogiorno’, Antropologia 7(2).

- Van Akken, Mauro (2005) 'Il dono ambiguo: modelli d’aiuto e rifugiati palestinesi nella valle del Giordano', Antropologia 5.


Lectures 24 & 25: Antropologia e imperialismo (2): Politica, Genere e Razzializzazione

- Bonilla, Yarimar and Jonathan Rosa (2015) '#Ferguson: Digital Protest, Hashtag Ethnography, and the Racial Politics of Social Media in the United States', American Ethnologist 42(1): 4-17.

- Davis, Dana-Aín (2020) ‘Reproducing While Black: The Crisis of Black Maternal Health, Obstetric Racism, and Assisted Reproductive Technology’, Reproductive Biomedicine & Society Online 11.

- Gentilucci, Marta (2020) ‘Risorse, miniere, capitalismo indigeno. Il caso di Koniambo Nichel (Nuova Caledonia)’, in Adriano Favole (a cura di) L’Europa d’Oltremare. Raffaello Cortina Ed., pp. 31-42.

- Reese, Ashanté (2017) ‘“We Will Not Perish; We’re Going to Keep Flourishing”: Race, Food Access, and Geographies of Self-Reliance’, Antipode 50(2).

- Rossini, Giulia, Cecilia Fasciani e Luca Villaggi (2021) 'Decolonizzare l’università per decolonizzare la società. L’esperienza di Decolonising the Academy tra riflessione teorica e azione politica'. Roots & Routes

- Saraswati, L. Ayu (2012)''Malu': Coloring Shame and Shaming the Color of Beauty in Transnational Indonesia', Feminist Studies 38(1).

Lectures 26 & 27: Antropologia medica (1): corpo, germi e persona

- Costantini, Osvaldo (2021) ‘Ammalarsi nell’accoglienza. Il disagio mentale in un centro di transito nel Sud della Sicilia’, Antropologia 8(1).

- Miramonti, Angelo (2021) ‘Amina: ritratto di una donna abitata dagli spiriti ancestrali (Senegal)’, Antropologia 8(1).

- Nadal, Deborah (2018) 'Pregnant with Puppies: The Fear of Rabies in the Slums of New Delhi, India'. Medicine Anthropology Theory | An open-access journal in the anthropology of health illness and medicine. doi.org/10.17157/mat.5.3.370

- Singer, Merrill and Barbara Rylko-Bauer (2021) 'The Syndemics and Structural Violence of the COVID Pandemic: Anthropological Insights on a Crisis', Open Anthropological Research 1: 7–32.

- Tassan Manuela (2017) ‘I luoghi della mãe d’água. Non-umani, corpi e malattie in un Quilombo dell’Amazzonia, Antropologia 4(2), pp. 209-227.

- Varley, Emma & Saiba Varma (2019) ‘Attending to the Dark Side of Medicine’, Anthropology News, AND Varley, Emma & Saiba Varma (2018) ‘Hospital Hauntings: Spectral Ties Across the Line of Control’, Medical Anthropology.

Lectures 28 & 29: Antropologia medica (2): salute, ambiente e rigenerazione

- Alunni, Lorenzo (2017) ‘La soglia di tolleranza. Coltivazione del tabacco, tumori e gestione del rischio in Alta Valle del Tevere’, Antropologia 4(1) Dossier speciale. Salute e ambiente: etnografie italiane. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14672/ada20171184%25p

- Blanchette, Alex (2019) ‘Living Waste and the Labor of Toxic Waste on American Factory Farms’, Medical Anthropology Quarterly 33(1): 80-100.

- Mazzeo, Agata (2020) 'Il corpo nelle esperienze di disastro e attivismo in siti contaminati dall’amianto'. Archivio antropologico mediterraneo 22(1). DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/aam.2667

- Pasquarelli, Elisa e Andrea F. Ravenda (2020) 'Antropologia medica nella crisi ambientale. Determinanti biosociali, politica e campi di causazione. Archivio antropologico mediterraneo 22(1) DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/aam.2507

- Raffaetà, Roberta (2017) ‘Salute e ambiente in tempi di Antropocene’. Antropologia, 4(1): 121-135.

Lezcture30: Guida alla preparazione per l'esame (scritto e orale) e presentazioni studenti

Teaching methods

Student attendance and participation in class (either online or in presence) is highly recommended, in order to facilitate learning and prepare for the evaluations (written work and oral exam).

Teaching will be organised both as (1) frontal lectures (accompanied by slides, video clips, etc.) and (2) student-led learning (student presentations, written work and group discussions). Students will be asked to prepare for class by reading at least one of the designated readings for the day, even if they are not presenting in class. Active participation, questions, suggestions and spontaneous ideas in class are all encouraged and part of the learning experience and will win extra points.

Details of the course milestones, resources and assesment methods will be given during the first lecture. Special attention will be given to explaining student activities and assignments (oral presentations in class, small group project and book review, with instructions on how to organise the group project, how to write the project report, how to prepare for a class presentation and how to write the book review). So come well prepared (remembering to check resources and instructions already present on Virtuale) and ready to ask all the questions you want to ask!

PLEASE NOTE:

Students with a disability or specific learning disabilities (DSA) who are requesting academic adjustments or compensatory tools are invited to communicate their needs to the teaching staff in order to properly address them and agree on the appropriate measures with the competent bodies.

Assessment methods

General Assessment for the course will be based on:

- (1) 2 written pieces: a 2,000 words review of the chosen monograph AND a report on a group assignment in audio-visual or material ethnography (students here are encouraged to be creative and submit text, but also images, etc.). The 2 written pieces have to be submitted 7 days before the date of the oral examination.

- (2) The oral examination, which will be a discussion of the 2 written pieces submitted, and how they connect to the course material.

- (3) Active participation in class, especially by volunteering to give student presentations after each lecture (one 15 min. presentation on one chosen reading from the bibliography for the day, with optional slides) but also by engaging (either orally or through the chat, or both) with fellow students and the teacher in spontaneous group discussions. Active, spontaneous participation will win extra points in the final mark for the course.

To summarise: The exam will be based on an oral discussion of the book review of the monograph the student chose from the list and a discussion of the assigned practical project (audio-visual or material ethnography) both to be handed in a week prior to the exam. Info on content, format and methods for the group project will be presented in Lecture 1. As the assigned practical project will be a group project, each individual contribution will be assessed during the oral exam. Extra points will be given to students who give oral presentations in class, either of a reading (from Lecture 2-Lecture 9) or their chosen monograph or assigned project (Lecture 10). Registration for oral presentations will be voluntary and open to all from the week before the start of the course, via a Google Doc accessible only to registered students on Virtuale.

Office hours

See the website of Vanessa Grotti

SDGs

Gender equality Reduced inequalities Climate Action Life on land

This teaching activity contributes to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN 2030 Agenda.