240507 VO Anthropology of the global south (P2) (2020W)

The global south is a conceptual space comprising regions of the world that have shared experiences of exploitation, inequality, imperialism, and colonialism. However, scholars have pointed to the fluidity and instability of the concept, arguing that it is difficult to draw clear lines in a northsouth divide. Nevertheless, this contrasts with the ways in which the global south is generally understood, as a hard-geographic reality that brings up images of the absence of modernity, kleptocracy, corruption, underdevelopment, and marginality. In this course, we will deploy ethnographic perspectives to assess and challenge these perceptions and constructions. What is the global south, and how has anthropology engaged with this geopolitical, socio-economic, and cultural formation? How have anthropologists contributed to its study? What are the theoretical debates which anthropologists have generated around what is commonly understood as global south? The course readings are centered on ethnographic approaches to key sites and dynamics of urban politics, gendered activism, and violence among others. After completing this course, students should be able to:

approach the concept of the global south through a body of theories and ethnographic works;
understand the global south as a broad formation while recognizing its internal diversity;
develop their critical reading, analytical, and written communication skills;
critically engage with the links between theoretical frameworks and the media sphere by placing the readings in a real-life context.

Reading list (first part)

Ahmad, Tania. 2014. "Socialities of indignation: Denouncing party politics in Karachi." Cultural Anthropology 29(2): 411432

Allen, Lori A. 2009. "Martyr bodies in the media: Human rights, aesthetics, and the politics of immediation in the Palestinian intifada." American Ethnologist 36(1): 161180

Auyero, Javier. 2015. "The politics of interpersonal violence in the urban periphery." Current Anthropology 56(S11): S169S179

Caldeira, Teresa P.R. 2015. "Social movements, cultural production, and protests: São Paulo’s shifting political landscape." Current Anthropology 56(11): S126-S136

Chua, Liana, and Mathur Nayanika. 2018. "Introduction: Who are ‘we’?" In Who are ‘we’? Reimagining alterity and affinity in anthropology, edited by Liana Chua and Nayanika Mathur, 134. New York and Oxford: Berghan Books

Ciotti, Manuela. 2012. "Resurrecting seva (social service): Dalit and low-caste women party activists as producers and consumers of political culture and practice in urban north India." The Journal of Asian Studies 71(1): 149170

Comaroff, Jean and John L. Comaroff. 2011. "Theory from the South: Or, how Euro-America is evolving toward Africa." Anthropological Forum 22 (2): 113131

Das, Veena. 2007. "The force of the local." Life and words: Violence and the descent into the ordinary. 135-161. Berkeley: University of California Press.

De Boeck, Filip. 2015. ""Poverty" and the politics of syncopation: Urban examples from Kinshasa (DR Congo)." Current Anthropology 56(11): S146S158

Deeb, Laura. 2009. "Piety politics and the role of a transnational feminist analysis." The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 15: S112S126

Escobar, Arturo. 2008. "Introduction." Territories of difference: Place, movements, life, redes. 126. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

Gupta, Akhil and James Ferguson. 1997. ""Beyond "culture": Space, identity, and the politics of difference." In Culture, power, place: Explorations in critical anthropology, edited by Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson, 3351. Durham: Duke University Press