POLITICS ON THE GROUND AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL INTRODUCTION

Course Objectives: This course aims to provide students with theoretical tools from anthropological studies in analyzing contemporary or historical political problems by focusing on the daily lives of ordinary people. It is expected that students acquire facility in discussing and analyzing social, cultural and political forms originated in different contexts and attain a deeper understanding in reading theoretical and political texts.

Course Content: This course will combine ethnographic and theoretical works on political questions, paying specific attention to meanings, signs, imaginaries, and practices as enacted in the daily lives of ordinary people. We will study specificities of political discourses, state practices, and social movements in order to complicate and expand our understanding of ideology, hegemony, class, and power. We will be asking questions such as: How do specific histories emerge in people’s political imaginaries? What are the social and political practices that sustain such histories while erasing others? Is the state an imagination of people or a material reality? Are people really serious when they cry in political meetings? Can we observe the ideologies and workings of world markets in local markets? Are there any intersection points where ordinary people relate questions of wealth to questions of political order? Focusing on a variety of ethnographic works, this course asks these and other questions as part of a broader effort to understand the origins, developments, and possibilities of the modern political world.