Postgraduate Course: Indigenous Peoples of Lowland South America (SCAN11010)
Course Outline
| School | School of Social and Political Science |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course will introduce you to the land, people and history of Amazonia. It draws on specific ethnographies of the region to explore key anthropological themes such as the relationship between ¿nature¿ and ¿culture¿, gender relations, violence, anthropological ethics, and the impacts of colonialism and global environmentalism. Rather than attempt to define the Amazon as a clearly bounded or unified cultural area determined by ecological features, we will explore the diverse ways in which indigenous Amazonian people understand what it means to be a person in a changing world. The course will give particular emphasis to indigenous thought and how Amazonian people engage in processes of social transformation through relations within and beyond their own communities. Part of this involves recognizing how indigenous Amazonian peoples today organize themselves politically in response to various threats to their environments and ways of life. The course is organized by weekly topics with corresponding required and further readings to be read before class. The course also involves reading a full-length ethnography on a topic of your choice related to any theme in the course. |
| Course description |
Outline Content:
1 Amazonia: land, ecology, people
2 Colonialism and Amazonian History
3 Gender
4 Violence
5 Making Kin, Becoming People
6 Between Nature and Society
7 Indigenous Identity and Inter-ethnic Relations
8 Environmentalism and Development
9 Amzonian Christianities
10 'Other' Amazonians
Student Learning Experience:
The course is organized by weekly topics with corresponding required and further readings to be read before class.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Analyse broad regional similarities in indigenous ways of life and modes of thought.
- Analyse differences and particularities in ways of life and modes of thought within the region.
- Recognize the complexity of relations between indigenous peoples and nation-states
- Critically evaluate the development of ethnography of lowland South America and its relevance to the development of anthropology as a discipline.
- Demonstrate the relevance of indigenous thought to the critical evaluation of European epistemologies
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Casey High
Tel:
Email: C.High@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Lauren Henderson
Tel: (0131 6)51 1659
Email: Lauren.Henderson@ed.ac.uk |
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