Political violence and its effects have been a significant force in shaping how we live, extending from the (re)definition and transformation of state-citizen interactions, the consolidation of national and political identities, geopolitical relationships, economies, legal-political systems, rights, advocacy and activism, displacement, migration, and border regimes among others. This module aims to offer a critical introduction to key topics related to the anthropological study of political violence with a focus on theory and ethnography from the post-colonial global south. Within such contexts, political violence has been framed as symptom, ailment, and injury, further entangled with scholarly considerations of political making, rupture and imagination.
The Anthropology of Political Violence is intended as an introduction to the literature spanning topics including sovereignty and the state, citizenship, marginality, dispossession, collective violence, and justice. We will examine how anthropologists have sought to understand the ways in which political violence becomes embedded in both the body and the everyday, and how impacted communities, in turn, engage and negotiate with political violence as cause, event, process and consequence. To this effect, the module considers political violence through an arc of key ideas and lenses through which political violence has been studied extending from beginnings to aftershocks as well as a means for materialising political futures and aspirations. We will delve into how political violence shapes the re/formation of political communities and boundaries, enactments of sovereignty, possibilities for resistance and self-determination, conflict, and the casting of victims and perpetrators. Moreover, through this module, we will investigate the aftermaths of such violence to inquire into questions of resilience, erasure, memory, justice, and accountability.
This module will also actively draw on film, poetry, and fiction to encourage students to reflect on how political violence has been ‘represented’ and addressed beyond the anthropological literature, especially by impacted creative practitioners.
CW/TW: This module includes content, descriptions, depictions, and discussions of a highly sensitive nature including but not limited to violence, injury, assault, atrocity, trauma, death, war and discriminatory attitudes or actions.
The Anthropology of Political Violence is intended as an introduction to the literature spanning topics including sovereignty and the state, citizenship, marginality, dispossession, collective violence, and justice. We will examine how anthropologists have sought to understand the ways in which political violence becomes embedded in both the body and the everyday, and how impacted communities, in turn, engage and negotiate with political violence as cause, event, process and consequence. To this effect, the module considers political violence through an arc of key ideas and lenses through which political violence has been studied extending from beginnings to aftershocks as well as a means for materialising political futures and aspirations. We will delve into how political violence shapes the re/formation of political communities and boundaries, enactments of sovereignty, possibilities for resistance and self-determination, conflict, and the casting of victims and perpetrators. Moreover, through this module, we will investigate the aftermaths of such violence to inquire into questions of resilience, erasure, memory, justice, and accountability.
This module will also actively draw on film, poetry, and fiction to encourage students to reflect on how political violence has been ‘represented’ and addressed beyond the anthropological literature, especially by impacted creative practitioners.
CW/TW: This module includes content, descriptions, depictions, and discussions of a highly sensitive nature including but not limited to violence, injury, assault, atrocity, trauma, death, war and discriminatory attitudes or actions.
Course Type: 2023-2024 Modules
Shared Course: No
Feeder Course: No