Anthropology, Intervention and Development

Language of Instruction

English

Pre-requirements

None

Learning Outcomes

This course will enable the student to understand anthropological perspectives on, and approaches to, issues of global development. Through detailed attention to and critical examination of specific examples of aid and development projects in different parts of the world, the student gains insight into a number of important debates about development, aid and intervention. She should be able to account for key aspects of these perspectives, approaches and debates. In particular, after following the course she will have attained a capacity for grasping "the local point of view" and for understanding multiple connections between the local and the global as mediated by organisations and institutions on different local, national and international levels. The student will be made particularly aware of the local effects of non-local initiatives, and should be capable of providing ethnographically grounded descriptions of these processes.

Contact Information

Department of Social Anthropology

Fosswinckelsgate 6

5007 Bergen

Norway

Homepage: http://www.uib.no/antro

E-mail: advice@sosantr.uib.no

Phone: +47 55 58 92 50

Fax: +47 55 58 92 60

Course offered (semester)

Spring

Exam offered (semester)

Spring/autumn

Language of Instruction

English

Course Unit Level

Bachelor level

Access to the Course Unit

This subject is open to students at the University of Bergen.

Aim and Content

At the University of Bergen and at the Christian Michelsen Institute there is a strong and enduring tradition for anthropological studies of - and involvement in - development issues, including the critical study of aid projects, and the fruitful interaction between academic and applied anthropology. This course draws on this accumulated expertise in "Bergen anthropology" to address a number of issues of high relevance in the world today, such as the roles of different actors (states, the World Bank, transnational corporations, NGOs, local authorities, rural communities) in the development process. These and other topics are explained, studied and discussed through selected detailed case studies that focus on particular development issues, specific aid projects, and particular regions of the world.

The course highlights the need in the development process for taking into account peoples' own understanding of reality, and anthropology´s capacity for grasping the complexities of local points of view and for analysing their contexts. Language and meaning, cultural relativism, fieldwork strategies and methodology, the diversity of local conditions and the details of everyday life, and a range of other dimensions are examined in the context of particular urgent issues such as poverty, food security, peace and conflict, climate change, environmental issues, gender, human rights, migration, and so forth. A comprehensive introduction is given to the key theoretical perspectives developed over the years in Bergen anthropology, with an emphasis on social process, generative analysis, models of scale and "micro-macro" relations. The roles of anthropologists in relation to aid projects, intervention and "development processes" more generally are exemplified.

Learning Outcomes

This course will enable the student to understand anthropological perspectives on, and approaches to, issues of global development. Through detailed attention to and critical examination of specific examples of aid and development projects in different parts of the world, the student gains insight into a number of important debates about development, aid and intervention. She should be able to account for key aspects of these perspectives, approaches and debates. In particular, after following the course she will have attained a capacity for grasping "the local point of view" and for understanding multiple connections between the local and the global as mediated by organisations and institutions on different local, national and international levels. The student will be made particularly aware of the local effects of non-local initiatives, and should be capable of providing ethnographically grounded descriptions of these processes.

Pre-requirements

None

Recommended previous knowledge

GLOB101/SANT100

Teaching Methods

Intensive lectures, half day seminar and continuous seminars throughout the semester.

3 hours each week

6 weeks in total

18 hours (lectures) in total

Compulsory Requirements

Submission of one essay (obligatory but not included in exam, valid for two semesters)

Assessment methods

6 hour written exam

Grading Scale

Grading A-F

Course Unit Evaluation

This subject is evaluated every term through "My Space"

Contact Information

Department of Social Anthropology

Fosswinckelsgate 6

5007 Bergen

Norway

Homepage: http://www.uib.no/antro

E-mail: advice@sosantr.uib.no

Phone: +47 55 58 92 50

Fax: +47 55 58 92 60