This module focuses on selected ethnographic regions of the world, and investigates the central themes in the anthropological studies of their peoples and cultures. This time round it focuses on Africa.
Few regions have influenced anthropological thought as deeply as Africa. Yet anthropology has a checkered history in African contexts. Many African thinkers rejected academic anthropology, while still addressing anthropological questions. This module interrogates the terse and unequal relationships between Africa and anthropology. It offers a critical understanding of ethnographic and theoretical writing on African contexts, while accounting for global inequalities in anthropological knowledge production and juxtaposing mainstream ethnographic analyses with anthropologically insightful texts written by African writers in other genres (poetry, stories, novels) and disciplines (history, theology, economics, information science). Along the way, students will discover how Africa has shaped classic debates in anthropology and continues to inspire new departures in contemporary anthropological and global public debates on a range of topics, from experiences of time and orientations towards the future to religion, sexuality, economic policy and technological change.