Practicing Anthropology

Course goals

Course description
This course focuses on doing anthropological research on pressing societal issues. The course centers around active learning forms in small groups wherein students focus on particular core themes, such as the migration-mobility nexus, more-than-human lifeworlds, energy, etcetera, that are connected to contemporary societal challenges, public debates, and political struggles. These themes vary per year, depending on staff expertise and societal partners. Students participate in one thematic track and learn how anthropology and its methods can help us think about these problems. Grounded in principles of challenge-based learning, students will work in small groups on a research project within one of the tracks and produce a research product, such as a research paper, a video, or a podcast.
 

Content

Learning goals
In this course, students will learn to:

1. Analyse pressing societal issues and debates within a particular thematic track.
2. Familiarize themselves critically with core literature of the chosen track/theme.

2.      Apply anthropological concepts and theory to pressing societal issues.
3.  Evaluate and compare various conceptual, methodological, and practical approaches in anthropology.
4.      Experiment with ethnographic research methods.
5.      Create a research product.
6.      Develop one’s own independent, critical, and intellectual position.
7.      Collaborate with peers in a research project.
8.      Reflect on the intellectual and learning process.