ANT358H1 Study Guide - Fall 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - Public Health, Hiv, Biomedicine
ANT358H1
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
13/09/18
Lecture 1: Intro and Taking Sides
-social justice: emphasizes values that eliminates anything that creates inequality in the world
-why certain types of diseases are prevalent in the world when they are not in other parts
-relationship between poverty, race, marginalization, gender, class, health disparities
-critique anthropologists’ role as social critic
-anthropology as a discipline to engage/create change
-public/activists
Anthropologist as Social Critic
-Susser reading
-anthropology’s place in social justice issues:
-give a voice to those who don’t have one
-provide criticism (i.e. challenge notions of norms)
-reveal inequalities -> work towards solutions
-ethnography to further issues of social justice:
-bring issues to the general public
-make more relatable to public
-insider to the issue
-contextualize ideas
-most anthropologists working with HIV/AIDS = engaging with issues of social justice (Susser
as well)
-ethnography: method and form of writing that requires long-term fieldwork (1+ year) to
study a group/culture
-activist ethnography: should be useful, accessible, and relevant to the local actors (those
engaged on a daily basis)
-may involve collaborate nature in work (not getting complete ownership)
-revealing problems in the world
Outsider/Insider Engagement
-self-reflective
-recognize position and privileges
-can’t impost outsider critiques/biases
-is political and engages with issue at hand -> use that privilege in effective way
-voices to be heard?
-not ethnocentric
“Copperbelt” Anthropologists
-Zambian Copperbelt: research on labour migration of men from rural to urban centres
helped anthropologists realize they can’t rely on one understanding of culture
-must consider global forces and its effects
!1
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
-1940s/50s
-due to effects of colonization in South Africa -> move to find work
-many people had diverse norms/cultures in different areas
-culture is not static
-Max Gluckman: founded Manchester School of anthropological thought
-father of political anthropology
-one of the first anthropologists to study an event or crisis rather than a society (before
there wasn’t problems to be solved that were revealed)
-reveal problems -> solve it
-situation/event analysis/extended case analysis
-research on why societies were kept cohesive
-rituals of rebellion: within a crisis/conflict, there is a social mechanism to perpetuate/
maintain it -> equilibrium (ritualized forms to preserve social order)
-hostility and disagreement is beneficial to social order (unlike Marx, it doesn’t lead to
revolution but RESOLUTION)
-conflict is inevitable
-studied colonialism -> new dimension to conflict (violence, lasting effects); colonial
society clashed with indigenous society (didn’t follow its rituals etc.)
-Victor Turner & A.L. Epstein: engaged anthropologists studying issues and conflicts
wanting to solve the problem
-Ruth Benedict: race relations in US; concerned with problems -> social justice;
transformative/societal change for the better
-Manchester School: school of thought
-founded by Gluckman
-case analysis: helps understand particular events/social interaction and bring about
possibilities of change
-focus on history/global forces -> prevalent actors on people/society today
i.e. issues of apartheid, class conflict
HIV Research
-work with activists and civil society organizations to look at policies for AIDS
-work towards problem -> work to reveal/solve problem
-participate with those affected by issue to understand and reveal their conditions -> transform
-explicit critical perspective in activist ethnography
Making Anthropology Public
-Nancy Scheper-Hughes
-for publicly engaged anthropology
-against open free buying/selling of organs even legal/for profit
-public anthropology: diverse practices beyond writing to academic audience
-be engaged with civilians
-write that is accessible to the public
-fear of contamination by the media (scared the media will change something)
!2
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Social justice: emphasizes values that eliminates anything that creates inequality in the world. Why certain types of diseases are prevalent in the world when they are not in other parts. Relationship between poverty, race, marginalization, gender, class, health disparities. Anthropology as a discipline to engage/create change. Give a voice to those who don"t have one. Provide criticism (i. e. challenge notions of norms) Ethnography to further issues of social justice: Most anthropologists working with hiv/aids = engaging with issues of social justice (susser as well) Ethnography: method and form of writing that requires long-term fieldwork (1+ year) to study a group/culture. Activist ethnography: should be useful, accessible, and relevant to the local actors (those engaged on a daily basis) May involve collaborate nature in work (not getting complete ownership) Is political and engages with issue at hand -> use that privilege in effective way.
