Why do people in different cultures think and act differently than we do? Why do different cultures have such divergent economic systems and ways of life? Why do some cultures seem to embrace ‘modern development’ while others resist? Why do people engage in practices that seem, to Western eyes, unfair or violent? How are consumerism and the global economy reshaping cultural forms and beliefs? How do gender, social class, caste, race, age, and indigenous status shape people’s lives and the decisions they make?
This course will seek to answer these questions from an anthropological perspective. While providing grounding in the various fields of anthropology – biological/physical, archaeological, and linguistic, the course focuses on the social/cultural dimensions of anthropology. It uses these dimensions to examine people across nations and cultures, their socialization, the dynamics of their culture that shape the decisions they make, the impact of overarching forces, such as globalization, war, ethnic conflict, and nationalism and the various social categories of inequality, such as gender, class, ethnicity, and age, that shape these decisions. It exposes students to research methodologies that seek to explore and analyze human condition from as it is lived. Lastly, the course provides a focus on analyzing various forms of development and how they intersect with the impact of an integrating, global economic, political and cultural order.
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