Postgraduate Course: The Ethnography Seminar (PGSP11042)
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 | Intended for MSc students in Social Anthropology, this course is meant to give them the opportunity to consider their forthcoming dissertations through a consideration of the questions raised by particular ethnographies, the methodologies on which they are based, and the analytic strategies employed. |
| Course description |
Course Outline: Indicative Topics
What is ethnography?
Ethnography as process
Ethnography as product
Engaging Others
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
|
Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | The course is restricted to students on the MSc Social Anthropology degree programme. Students on the MSc Medical Anthropology degree programme who wish to enrol on the course should contact the Course Organiser for permission. |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
|
| Academic year 2024/25, Available to all students (SV1)
|
Quota: 50 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 20,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
176 )
|
| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
|
| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Assessment is 100% by coursework. There are TWO assessed components: (1) a 2000 word essay on a specific ethnography (50%) and (2) a 2000 word essay on how ethnographies are informing students' own dissertation research (50%). |
| Feedback |
Students will receive written feedback with their marks for their short and long essay assessments. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Identify and engage with key theories related to questions of ethnographic representation.
- Critically read and discuss ethnographic texts that are essential for the discipline of social anthropology.
- Draw connections between theory and ethnography in terms of methods and authorial strategies
- Creatively engage a diverse range of ethnographic representation in their own writing.
- Exercise autonomy in their own writing practice.
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Reading List
Aunger, Robert. ¿On Ethnography: Storytelling or Science?¿ Current Anthropology 36, no. 1 (1995): 97¿130
Becker, Heike &Emile Boonzaier & Joy Owen. 2005. Fieldwork in shared spaces: positionality, power and ethics of citizen anthropologists in southern Africa, Anthropology Southern Africa
Biehl, João. 2013/2005. Vita: Life in a Zone of Social Abandonment. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Cooper, Jessica. 2018. Unruly Affects: Attempts at Control and All that Escapes from an American Mental Health Court. Cultural Anthropology 33(1): 85-108.
Crapanzano, Vincent. 1980. Tuhami: Portrait of a Moroccan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Fassin, Didier. 2013. Why Ethnography Matters: On Anthropology and Its Publics. Cultural Anthropology 28(4): 621-646.
Herzfeld, Michael. 1993. Introduction. The Social Production of Indifference: Exploring the Symbolic Roots of Western Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 1-16.
Jobson, Ryan. 2020. The Case for Letting Anthropology Burn: Sociocultural Anthropology in 2019. American Anthropologist 122(2): 259-271.
Lester, Rebecca. 2019. Famished: Eating Disorders and Failed Care in America. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Nyamnjoh, Francis. 2011. ¿Cameroonian Bushfalling: Negotiation of Identity and Belonging in Fiction and Ethnography.¿ American Ethnologist 38 (4): 701¿19
Pink, Sarah. 2015. 'Principles for sensory ethnography : Perception, place, knowing, memory and imagination' in Principles for sensory ethnography. SAGE Publications Ltd
Scott, James C. 1987. Weapons of the Weak. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Tengan, Ty P. Ka¯wika. 2005. Unsettling Ethnography: Tales of an ¿O¯ iwi in the Anthropological Slot. Anthropological Forum Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 247¿256 |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Jessica Cooper
Tel: (0131 6)51 1732
Email: Jessica.Cooper@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Ms Emilia Czatkowska
Tel: (0131 6)51 3244
Email: Emilia.Czatkowska@ed.ac.uk |
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