04718 - Social Anthropology (A-L)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course, the student will master the main lines of the history of social anthropology and he will acquire a critical knowledge of the anthropological paradigms aimed at studying inequality and social exclusion. Besides, he will master the anthropological debate on Anthropocene.

Course contents

The course described here is directed at ARCO students whose family name is between the letters A and L (no exceptions are possible). For the students in History there is no division.

The course is divided into 2 parts but the exam is unique.

The course will explore some areas of social and urban anthropology with a focus on racism, the processes of segregation/marginality and the production of specific street cultures. Furthermore, the issues of debt, the crisis and the digital divide will be addressed, trying to understand their impact on the life of specific communities with an ethnographic and bottom-up approach.

The macro themes addressed in the course are: 1) urban transformations and inequalities 2) exclusion and street cultures 3) capitalist transformations, inequalities and policies promote the criminalization of the poor. The proposed ethnographies address, with an anthropological approach, the themes of racism, inequality and urban segregation in the current phase in which these problems are often addressed through security, racist and criminalizing policies.

 

 

 

 

Readings/Bibliography

There are no differences in the program between attending and non-attending students.

First module (two texts):

Aime M. 2020. Classificare, Separare, Escludere. Razzismi e Identità, Einaudi.

One text between:

D'Eramo M. 2020. Il maiale e il grattacielo. Chicago: una storia del nostro futuro. Feltrinelli

Wacquant L. 2016. I reietti della città. Ghetto, perififeria, stato. Edizioni ETS.

 

Second module:

two texts between: 

Appadurai A., Neta A.2020. Fallimento. Raffaello Cortina Editore.

Bourgois P. 2005. Cercando rispetto. Drug economy e cultura distrada. Derive Approdi.

Bourgois P., Schonberg J., 2011. Reietti e fuorilegge. Antropologia della violenza nella metropoli americana, Derive Approdi.

Fassin D. 2013. La forza dell'ordine. Antropologia della polizia nelle periferie urbane. La Linea.

Teaching methods

Lessons will be frontal and occasionally the teacher will use audiovisual material to give more concreteness to the topics discussed. Students will be solicited to ask questions and open up debates on the issues addressed in the course.

Assessment methods

The exam is written and will be held in computer labs. Students with 12 cfu will have two hours to answer four questions, one for each text chosen, students with 6 cfu will have one hour for 2 questions.

Students will have to prove to be able to contextualize the texts, to place them within the history of discipline and to reconstruct their theoretical frameworks. They will have two hours and thirty minutes to answer to four open questions on the computers in the computer lab. The program is the same both for students attending classes as well as for the non-attending ones.

Teaching tools

The teacher will occasionaly use audio-visual sources (documentaris, maps and photos)

Office hours

See the website of Luca Jourdan