Spring 2007

Human Rights and Social Justice: From Theory to Praxis
Anthropology 1635

In this course, we will study the theory and practice of human rights by examining key debates that have animated the field. We will consult human rights documents, declarations, conventions and protocols, complementing our reading of source documents with anthropological monographs, novels, poems, and films.

The course is organized thematically rather than regionally, reflecting the globalized context in which any debate regarding human rights must take place. We will begin with a series of theoretical and conceptual texts, and then apply these analytical tools to several case studies. The case studies this year include: indigenous peoples, autonomy and self-determination; the rights of children and child combatants; gendered violence and human rights; the traffic in workers and organs; rights as vehicles for achieving social justice; health as a human right; and the role of academic-activists in the struggle for human life and dignity.

We understand human rights as an embedded social practice, and thus move beyond an interest in theory to an exploration of how rights are practiced, by whom, and to what ends. Ideas about human rights are always located within broader debates about the moral, the good, the just and the unjust. As we move through our case studies, we explore anthropologist’s contributions to the theoretical and practical challenges of human rights work. Anthropologists can use their research on cultural meanings and struggles to advance projects for social justice by merging cultural critique and political action. We will conclude the course by considering the promise and challenges of human rights as a means of working for social justice.

Reconfiguring Regimes: Power, Law and Governance
Anthropology 2645

In this course we will study changing conceptions of law, power and governance. We will read widely from both classic and contemporary texts in the fields of legal and political anthropology, examining the cultural dimensions of law and law’s changing relationship to discipline, power and governmentality.

Some have argued that we are living in an age in which the political is increasingly displaced into the realm of the legal, social policy dissolving into the technocratic language of efficiency. And yet the “rule of law” has tremendous currency and moral force in international politics, and legal language had become a key resource in struggles over livelihood and ways of life. How are relationships between legal and political realms structured and with what consequences? How does law provide tools for both social struggle and for social control? What does anthropology bring to research on these issues? In exploring these questions, we will combine theoretical readings with ethnographic inquiries of the state, the legal, the magical and the just.

Fall 2005

Transgressive Texts? Contemporary Latin American Ethnographies

This course involves the close reading of a selection of recently published Latin American ethnographies. Ethnography is both method and product: as method, it allows the researcher to move between layers of analysis and experience to grasp the forces that animate, distort, inspire and shape people’s lives. As product, ethnography affords us the opportunity to demonstrate the relevance of anthropology to our collective understanding of the social issues that mark our contemporary world.

In this class we examine the dialogues constructed between theory and practice, between theory and the art of ethnographic writing. Although the texts selected do cluster around certain thematic concerns — gender, ethnicity, globalization, indigenous movements, violence, memory and the nation-state — their selection was guided less by thematic coherence than by an interest in exploring how the authors both use and generate theory. We take seriously Tsing’s caution that metropolitan readers tend to skip over “Third World Detail” as mere description wedged between the “Theory,” thereby reproducing a series of epistemological dichotomies regarding the production of “knowledge.” In addition to reading theory via ethnography, we are interested in analyzing the extent to which these authors write within and against regional emplotment strategies. To what degree are these transgressive texts? What is the place, pun intended, of regional specialization in the globalized context in which anthropologists work and live? What is the role of Latin American anthropology in the generation of knowledge and action?

Among the questions and objectives we have in this class are the following:

• We examine the research methods and questions used to generate the ethnographic material presented. How did the anthropologist formulate his or her project, and how did that project change over time?

• How do the individual authors use and generate theory? What is the “goodness of fit” between theory and practice, between theory and the art of ethnographic writing? Which texts are compelling and why?

• What are the innovative aspects of each text? What are their strengths and weaknesses? Why were these manuscripts chosen for publication by the leading academic presses? What do these texts tell us about the state of the art in Latin American anthropology?

• In our conversations with the authors, what can we learn from their personal and professional genealogies? Given my suspicion that few of us head to “the field” with any sense of preparedness — coupled with my conviction that how to move from research to writing is one of our discipline’s most closely guarded secrets — what can we learn from our discussions with these anthropologists?

• Finally, how can we combine theoretical rigor with beautiful prose and thus reach a broader audience? In our efforts to do so, can we realize the potential of writing as a political intervention?

Spring 2005

Intervention: Ethics, Logics, Intentions (Graduate Seminar)

Course traces the rise of the humanitarian narrative and examines how humanitarianism, in conjunction with other keywords such as crisis, emergency, and intervention, has become one of the organizing categories of political action and order. The profusion of humanitarian actors reflects the changing nature of sovereignty and transsovereign problems. We will explore the impact of interventions, broadly defined to include humanitarian interventions, development programs, and peace-building efforts, particularly in the context of social inequality, political violence and its aftermath. We analyze both the possibilities and the limitations of intervening in the lives of individuals and "communities," that entity which has been the unit of interest in much of the development and humanitarian discourse and practice.

Recent critiques of interventions designed to promote economic development have argued that they generate as well as conceal global inequalities in access to resources and power in spite of the good intentions by which they are apparently motivated. In contrast, interventions to promote peace and ensure respect for human rights have been largely viewed as unproblematic. Nonetheless, the relations of power entailed in interventions for peace call for a cautious assessment of the logics and intentions of such interventions.

We will examine the theoretical conversations and policy debates surrounding humanitarianism and human rights, and the role of humanitarianism in configuring new forms of governance. When are interventions a form of cultural imperialism, and when do interventions serve as a crucial resource for populations marginalized within the nation-state? If we consider a politics of scale, the capacity to "go global" is frequently a key resource for groups whose efforts to achieve social justice within the nation-state have been repeatedly denied. Moreover, as the role of non-state actors has increased, international humanitarian organizations have become important political players in terms of advocacy and aid. In what some have hailed the twilight of sovereignty, is there a right to intervene? A duty to do so? When is the failure to intervene an ethical failure as well?

Violence in the Andes: Coca, Conflict and Control (Undergraduate course)
In this course we address the politics of coca and conflict in the Andean Region. We will engage an interdisciplinary set of readings that allow us to move beyond the "endemic violence" arguments to examine the structures of conflict and historicize the current violence in the region. We will trace different historical understandings of coca, ranging from the "miracle drug" to "moral panic". Our readings will allow us as to analyze the complex dynamics of coca production, counter-narcotics and counter-insurgency efforts in the Andes, moving between state and non-state actors as well as domestic and international interests. We will address the rise of indigenous movements within this context, and their potential to redefine political agendas in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia.

Fall 2004

Anthropology 1710 Memory Politics

In the aftermath of political violence and the massive violation of human rights, how do people, communities and societies come to terms with these atrocities and reconstruct social relationships and sociability? "How do people live together again after suffering and inflicting lethal violence?" In the context of state-sponsored terror, how do successor regimes make a break with the past, establish a new set of social norms, and work toward the administration of justice, redress and reconciliation? In this course we analyze the relationship between memory and social reconciliation, and the role that theories of truth, justice and redress play in this equation.

"We begin with WWII, or more precisely its aftermath." WWII was a point of historical disjuncture: From the Nazi atrocities and the subsequent trials at Nuremberg and Tokyo emerged a series of conventions and covenants establishing human rights as a set of international laws, institutions, and norms. We trace the expansion of, and challenges to, the regime of human rights and international law by focusing on four case studies that allow us to analyze war crimes tribunals, truth commissions, the burgeoning field of transitional justice, and local level forms of assessing guilt and administering justice. "Our four case studies include Rwanda, South Africa, Guatemala and Peru." We draw upon human rights documents, social scientific analyses, novels and film in an attempt to understand how atrocities begin and how they may end.

We will consider how genocides continued to occur throughout the 20th century, a century characterized by the call for "Never Again". Finally, once the fighting subsides, what can and should be done with the victims, the perpetrators, and that sizeable segment of the population that may blur the dichotomy?