Final Paper (Fall 2012)

Due Friday Dec. 14, 5 pm, by email

Length and Format:  7-8 pages, double-spaced, 1 inch margins all around, 12 point fonts.  Please spellcheck and number your pages; Please use in-text citation (ex.: Ferguson 2006: 12; Ibid.: 24).  They should be well-organized, with a clear thesis or argument that is 1) articulated in the first or second paragraphs, 2) supported by evidence from readings, and 3) reconsidered and fleshed out in a conclusion.

Evaluation: I will evaluate and respond to papers based on (in order of priority):

1. Degree to which you respond to the assignment and incorporate ideas and issues from class materials in your discussion;
   
2. Extent to which you demonstrate clear understanding of basic terms presented in the course;
   
3. the creativity and originality of your ideas;
   
4. The clarity of your organization and writing;

Topic: The Anthropology of "Globalization": Theory/Methodology

In this course, we situate anthropological theory and method in the high-stakes debates about the nature of "globalization" processes since especially the 1980s and 90s, when international trade liberalization policies and "free market" discourses rose to the fore. In this final paper, we ask: what does a specifically anthropological approach bring to the analysis of new transregional relationships and practices?

Your task is to answer that question by choosing and analysing a particular "node" of transregional relationships, or interactions, or practices (e.g., a pivotal event, an influential campaign, a new organization or movement, a controversial performance), in the light of the theory/methodologies laid out by an anthropologist (or set of them) we read this semester. Some outside research on your chosen site of inquiry will be necessary. See the course library research guide (online, under the sidebar 'requirements' link) for guidance, especially on researching corporations or advertising.

There are a variety of ways to approach this kind of analysis. It is only 8 pages, so it has to be a feasible, and fairly concise argument. Anthropologists' writing seeks to simultaneously analyze empirical data and question or test the applicability or generalizability of theoretical frameworks. Thus all ethnographic writing has to find a balance between forms of description or narration and more abstract discussions that define the terms and stakes of the methodology. You can find your own balance: you can devote more space to explicating a theoretical debate among anthropologists and their interlocutors, illustrating it with recourse to your case or event, or you can devote more space to an analysis of your case/event with reference to a theoretical debate.                   

As you think about what an anthropological approach to "globalization" might be, consider especially:

• What discourses, theoretical premises, and methods are anthropologists of "globalization" arguing against?
  
• What methodological arguments have emerged among anthropologists (ie., debates about the line between 'the local' as the observed and 'the global' observer, between 'the field' and 'home', etc.)
  
• How has the concept of 'culture' been rethought?
  
• What approaches to time and space do anthropologists advocate?
  
• How do anthropologists conceptualize personhood and agency? ("subjects"?)           
• How do notions of "value" or "commodities" figure into anthropologists' understandings of economics?
  
• What do anthropologists make of power and the possibility for resistance or change?
  
• Finally, what's at stake in academics' debates? in the theories and methods they use?

 

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