Perspectives: how to think like an anthropologist

Through this course you will get an understanding of what characterizes anthropological ways of thinking and seeing the world. The course will demonstrate some ways of thinking as an anthropologist as well as some concepts to think with.

Anthropological analysis is often characterized by an attempt to understand people’s lives on their own terms, often by suspending ones own cultural biases and assumptions and seeing practices within their own social and cultural context. Additionally, anthropologists will often study locally specific cases and practices in order to shed light on larger questions concerning humans and society. We often use comparison to highlight how things we might take for granted are different elsewhere and therefore not natural and inevitable. A common form of anthropological critique aims to uncover how something people think about as natural is in fact historically and culturally constructed and that its seeming naturalness can contribute to maintaining relations of inequality. Anthropologists are also often concerned with highlighting the worldviews and experiences of people who live on the fringes of global structures and people who are not in positions of power.

This course will also challenge you to take actively use the anthropological ways of thinking in practical observation and writing assignments.

A student who has completed this course should have the following learning outcomes defined in terms of knowledge, skills and general competence:

Knowledge

• Knowledge about what characterize anthropological perspectives
• Knowledge of a selection of central concepts

Skills

• Ability to use anthropological perspectives to look at specific real world examples
• Ability to use anthropological concepts and terms
• Ability to discuss different perspectives in relation to each other and in terms of what each can highlight or miss

General competence

• Ability to make observations and discuss them in light of academic literature
• Ability to communicate academic material through presentations and in writing

Lectures and seminars. Some of the lectures may be given in English.

Please note that compulsory activities and lectures may start prior to the registration deadline.