Course content

Globalization refers to global flows of people, ideas, images, information, merchandise, capital and more on a scale and speed as never before. With these global movements, the world is undergoing a transition in which communities are becoming interconnected through myriad economic, ecological, political, and technological changes. Many of these changes are induced from several centers, especially "the West," and this process affects people’s lives and cultures in new and often unpredictable ways.

This course examines how local cultures, ecologies, and people’s lives are being affected by globalization in multiple and sometimes not necessarily positive ways. For analytical purposes, we reflect on globalization through three distinct processes:

1. The emergent Anthropocene reflects a historical break from a world composed of a natural order to a highly managed human-centric world characterized by imposing unsustainable risks to the global environment.
2. Statecraft and the post-national order examine the rise of our current geopolitical formation by examining the transformations in the global order that bind people, states, and territories as well as the challenges of transnational processes and institutions.
3. Digital worlds and flows draw attention to the rising amounts and faster deliveries of information that accompany the movements of people and things, suggesting a new knowledge-driven economy, one that is fragmented by its reliance on end users as much as on its producers.

Learning outcome

The students shall gain knowledge of recent anthropological approaches to globalization with an emphasis on the twin role of Culture and Power in these analyses. The specific objective is to gain insights into how globalization is conceptualized through different and diverse combinations of practices which produce meaning and how anthropological theory contributes to established concepts of globalization.

The course provides insights into different ethnographic, historical, and analytical approaches for understanding theories of power in the historical and contemporary Anthropocene globalization.

Knowledge

• Have an overview of the ongoing debate on Anthropocene globalization and culture.
• Have basic knowledge about central concepts Anthropocene, globalization and culture and apply them to interpret current cultural and social phenomenon.

Skills and general competences

• Be able to reflect on how people respond to and cope with their changing environmental, cultural, and economic predicament that follows from Anthropocene globalization.
• Have developed an awareness of the dynamic approaches to differences and similarities in people’s social life, and on the basis of this, be able to interpret and produce ethnographic knowledge.

Learning methods and activities

Lectures and seminars.

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

The course has a compulsory assignment. Each student is expected to give a brief midterm oral presentation of their ongoing work with an individual assignment due at the end of the semester. This presentation will be made in the classroom in front of the class.

The compulsory assignment has to be approved in order to qualify for the exam.

Compulsory assignments

• Plenary presentation of group assignment

Required previous knowledge

Either 60 ECTS in Social Anthropology or a bachelor's degree or equivalent.

Course materials

See reading list available at the beginning of the semester.

Credit reductions