ARCH20057: Social Theories
WEEK 23: Structure and Agency; Actor and Assemblage
What are ‘structures’? What is ‘agency’ and who (or what) has it? How do the two terms relate? What is assemblage theory and how can the frameworks proposed by Deleuze & Guattari and DeLanda help us to better explore worlds of immanence and relationality?
WEEK 22: Material Culture, Materiality and the New Materialisms
This week we will explore a range of approaches to the study and interpretation of objects and things, from functionalism and symbolism through to frameworks that stress instead their material qualities and the complex ways in which people and things mutually constitute one another through relationships and entanglements.
WEEK 21: Landscape, Dwelling & Inhabitation
Landscape sits at the heart of many of our attempts to make sense of lived worlds, whether in the past or the present; close to us or far away. Yet what do anthropologists and archaeologists mean when they use the term landscape? Is it synonymous with the natural environment or something that has been fashioned and shaped by people? Is it a mode of representation of the material world unique to the modern west, or is it instead a locus of inhabitation and dwelling? Tune in, find out.
WEEK 20: Body, Personhood, Identity
In this session we will explore a range of theories that focus upon the body, personhood, gender and identity. From bounded individuals, to porous, partible persons we will look at the fluidity of our identities and the role played by performance in the construction and maintenance of gender norms.
WEEK 13: What is ‘theory’? Styles of analysis in anthropological writing
The first session provides an introduction to the unit and will discuss expectations, structure and assessments. We will think through a range of different ways in which anthropologists use ‘theory’, examine a number of key frameworks through which anthropological analyses are conducted, and think about the role that ethnography plays in anthropological arguments.
WEEK 14: Neoliberalism: anthropological engagements with an interdisciplinary keyword
One of the central ways that anthropologists ‘do’ theory is to explore the distinctive contributions an ethnographically-grounded analysis can make to interdisciplinary debates surrounding particular keywords. ‘Neoliberalism’ here will stand as one example of this key strategy of anthropological theory-making.
WEEK 15: Foucault, governmentality, and an anthropological approach
Another form of theoretical engagement within anthropology involves engaging with the work of key intellectuals, and thinking about what an anthropological perspective adds to their ideas. This session examines the ways in which Michel Foucault—one of the most influential intellectuals of the 20th century—has been drawn upon in order to develop new anthropological perspectives on topics such as development and the state.
WEEK 16: The ‘Ontological Turn’, a recent disciplinary debate
This session will explore one of the most controversial and hotly-debated theoretical movements within social and cultural anthropology in recent years. The session serves as an example of the ways in which ‘theory’ in anthropology emerges from heated internal dialogue about the point and purpose of the discipline.
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