Description
Module Content
This module explores anthropological contributions to the landscape of professional practice across a range of social fields. It trains students in how to contribute to a contemporary anthropology that, theoretically endowed and ethnographically driven, is professionally relevant, enhancing the fields of processions practice to which it is applied. Training students in anthropological concepts and methods, it provides them with skills and insights that can have a transformative effect in their chosen area of work. Seminars involving guest speakers from relevant industries focus on selected fields of professional practice, which may include: digital technology, the voluntary sector, education, healthcare, finance, social enterprise and development, human rights and the courts, and design anthropology.
Learning Outcomes
Having completed the module students will:
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Be able to deploy central theories, concepts and analytical procedures in applied anthropology, design anthropology and other contemporary approaches that operate at the intersection of anthropology and professional practice.
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Understand the history and consequences of anthropological engagement beyond academia
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Demonstrate knowledge and critical understanding of the potential applications of anthropological knowledge and methods for addressing challenges arising in particular professional and organizational settings.
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Construct and present arguments about anthropological contributions to professional practice in different fields using appropriate theoretical and ethnographic insights.
Have command of the following transferable skills:
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Ability concisely to pitch a project to peers and industry experts
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Ability to present a case-study research project through use of PowerPoint slides (or equivalent software)
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Ability to work collaboratively in a team
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Ability to source and analyse diverse data pertaining to case-studies from a selected professional field or industry
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Time, planning and management skills.
Delivery Method
This module is taught through a three-hour weekly seminar and one-hour tutorial:
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In the three-hour seminar students will receive a one- hour lecture by an industry expert, and then participate in peer project work to develop a research case study that puts in practice and combines the methods training and theoretical focus of teaching in Term One. The project work will involve the critical application of anthropological theory and methods to an industry brief.
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The one-hour tutorial offers the opportunity to debrief on project work and reflect in detail on the diverse conceptual, ethical, social and political dynamics that underpin anthropological research in industry.
Additional Information
Indicative readings:
Mosse, David. 2011. In Shore, C, Wright, S. & Pero, D. (Eds.) Policy worlds: anthropology and the analysis of contemporary power. P.50-67. Oxford: Berghahn. (ebook)
Lassiter, E.L. 2005. “Collaborative Ethnography and Public Anthropology.” Current Anthropology. 46(1). 83-106.
Brutti, L. (2001) “Where Anthropologists Fear to Tread. Notes and Queries on Anthropology and Consultancy, Inspired by A Fieldwork Experience” in Social Analysis. 45(2). Special Issue on Anthropology & Consultancy (eds) A. Strathern & P. Stewart.
Bell, Joyce M. 2014. The Black Power Movement and American Social Work. New York: Columbia University Press
Hale, C. R. (2006). Activist research v. cultural critique: Indigenous land rights and the contradictions of politically engaged anthropology. Cultural Anthropology, 21(1), 96-120.
Peirano, M.G.S. 1998. “When Anthropology is at Home: The Different Contexts of a Single Discipline” Annual Review of Anthropology 1998, Vol.27, p.105-128
Pels, P (1999) ‘Professions of Duplexity: A prehistory of ethical codes in anthropology’ Current Anthropology 40 (2): pp 101-136
Sillitoe, P. (2007), Anthropologists only need apply: challenges of applied anthropology. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 13: 147–165.
Bennett, J. 1996. “Applied and Action Anthropology: Ideological and Conceptual Aspects” Current Anthropology 36, Supplement: S23-S53
L. Field & R.G. Fox (eds) 2007, Anthropology put to Work. Berg Press: Oxford
MacClancy, J. (Ed.). (2002). Exotic no more: anthropology on the front lines. Chicago, Ill.; London: University of Chicago Press. (chapters to interest).
Module deliveries for 2024/25 academic year
Last updated
This module description was last updated on 19th August 2024.