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Social Anthropology 1B – 2011-12

SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY 1B

(SCAN08002)

2011/2012

COURSE GUIDELINES, LECTURE PROGRAMME,

READING LIST

THE UNIVERSITY of EDINBURGH

SCHOOL OF SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCE

*This booklet should be read in conjunction with the 2011-12, Social and Political Science, Student Handbook - a guide to common information and procedures for students in first and/or second year courses throughout the School. There you will find detailed information on a wide variety of topics (including assessment of coursework, criteria for grading work, plagiarism, study skills, course evaluation, etc.).

What is Social Anthropology?

Social Anthropology is the comparative study of human conduct and thought in their social context. Societies around the world vary enormously in their social, cultural and political forms, and their individual members display an initially overwhelming diversity of ideas and behaviour. The study of these variations, and the common humanity which underlies them and renders them intelligible to sympathetic outsiders, lies at the heart of Social Anthropology. Anthropologists acquire their information through a distinctive method termed ‘participant observation’. This means that they spend many months or even years living among the people with whom they are researching, sharing their experiences as far as possible, and hence attempting to gain a well-rounded understanding of that society and of the activities and opinions of its members.

The remainder of this booklet* provides:

*a map detailing the location of Social Anthropology and the lecture theatre

*details concerning the teaching of the course

*details concerning the assessment of the course

*communication between students and teaching staff

* a guide to Reading Materials

* a week-by-week course programme

Map

Social Anthropology is located at:

Chrystal Macmillan Building (CMB)

15A George Square

The lectures will be held in:

David Hume Tower, Lecture Theatre A

Mondays and Thursdays, 16.10-17.00

The videos will be held in:

David Hume Tower, Lecture Theatre C

A GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE COURSE

I. Aims, Learning Outcomes, Transferable Skills

1. Aims

This semester-long course aims to help students develop a sound basic knowledge and a critical understanding of the relevance of the academic discipline of Social Anthropology to developmental challenges worldwide. It emphasises the practical relevance of Social Anthropology to the challenges of promoting development, social justice, and well-being. It explores both the actual and potential benefits of ethnography (of places organizations, and kinds of activity), of analytical and conceptual anthropology, and of anthropological methods and values. It also explores the factors that limit or facilitate the potential practical value of anthropology, and compares the respective contributions of anthropologists working from within and outside academia.

2. Learning Outcomes

Students will gain an understanding of: ethnography as both process and product; an historical appreciation of the development of the concepts of fieldwork; and begin to apply that understanding to ethnographic works. They will become familiar with more of the basic anthropological concepts and the analysis of cultural materials from around the world.

3. Transferable Skills

While studying Social Anthropology, students will be encouraged to gain or further develop a range of other useful skills:

  • reading and writing skills - exercising and improving their skills in reading unfamiliar and often complex material, students are expected to order their own arguments and present them in the form of written essays. Returned with comments, these essays will form an important part of the overall assessment.
  • oral skills - developing further their skills in communicating complex material in a clear and engaging way, students are expected to participate in the tutorial discussions which are focused on the oral presentation of sophisticated arguments and debates.
  • bibliographical skills - in presenting their written and oral work, students are expected to learn how to use the various libraries at the University and to familiarize themselves with the ways in which bibliographical information should be compiled, edited and presented.
  • word-processing skills - with easy access to computers and a variety of computing courses, students are expected to word-process their essays and learn to use email (in order to contact tutors).
  • using the Web - becoming accustomed to accessing relevant web sites (both in the context of tutorial discussions and the writing of essays) constitutes an important part of this course.

II. Teaching

1. Lectures

There are two 50 minute lectures every week: Mondays & Thursdays, 16.10 to 17.00.

2. Lecture Outline

  • Introduction (Dr Joost Fontein & Dr Neil Thin)
  • Better Living Through Anthropology? Cross-cultural Studies of Wellbeing (Dr Neil Thin)

Although more commonly associated with the study of harm and its mitigation, social science can help us understand how people conceptualise and try to achieve good lives and good societies. The distinctive contributions of anthropology come from holistic andcross-cultural studies which explore the interplay between universals and diversity in the ways in which wellbeing is anticipated, experienced, and evaluated, and in the ways in which it features in ideas about what a good society should be like. This section of the course invites you to consider not only the contributions anthropology has made and could make to understanding well-being and the conceptualisation of individuals and their lives and experiences, but also whether the study of anthropology could help you lead a better life and help others to do so too.

  • Environments, Landscapes & Objects (Dr Joost Fontein)

Stuff matters. We all exist materially and in a material world, and these dimensions of peoples’ lives are not separate from culture, history or politics but fundamentally intertwined with them. The lectures in this half of the course will invite you to consider how anthropology has engaged with three important and inter-related aspects of what we might loosely call material culture; these are landscapes, environments and objects. We begin by considering environmentalism by focusing particularly on questions of nature & culture, the cultural construction of nature & gender and the politics of conservation. The next three lectures will explore the anthropology of landscape, the connection between landscape and memory, and the power inherent in space and particularly maps. The last three lectures will look at objects, beginning with an exploration of how political ideologies can be embedded in public and private spaces, followed by an exploration of the social lives of things, and finishing with a discussion of how objects do things (ie have agency).

3. Tutorials

Tutorials provide an opportunity for you to discuss your own ideas and your reaction to the readings and lectures. The tutors will also assist you in the organization of your essays and preparation for the exam at the end of the year.

Each tutorial consists of 10-15 students. Tutorials meet weekly, starting in the second week of the course. Thus, your first tutorial takes place in the week starting Monday, 23 January 2012.

Tutorial attendance and the prompt submission of coursework are requirements for all students. Students who fail to attend at least six out of nine tutorials without good reason will have their final mark reduced by one percentage point for each unapproved absence above the threshold, and will not have their final marks raised if their performance overall is borderline.

Please note that pressure of work or problems of time management are not considered an acceptable reason for non-attendance at tutorials or for late submission of work.

  • How to sign up

By the time you read this you should (if pre-registered for the course) have received an email asking you to sign up for a tutorial online using MyEd Don’t forget to make a note of the time and day, name of your tutor, and room in which your tutorial will take place. Once you have signed up for a specific tutorial group, you will usually stay with it for the rest of the semester.

During Lecture 1 (Monday 16 January), the Course Organizer will be able to answer queries about tutorials, and thereafter if you have a query about your tutorial time or place, please contact the course secretary May Rutherfordvia email or in the Undergraduate Teaching Office, Chrystal Macmillan Building, ground floor.

  • Tutorial Programme: what will we be doing?

The first tutorial will provide you with essentials about the programme and procedures for the rest of the course, and it is therefore all the more important that you do not miss it.

Tutorials have a flexible format, but they do follow a pre-defined course of work. In order to gain a basic understanding of Social Anthropology and to have the opportunity to discuss the lecture/reading material, tutorial work will closely follow the discussion topics as specified in this course guide. Attention will also be paid to developing the necessary writing and bibliographical skills ensuring that all students can research, write and present essays effectively. In addition, guided by past years’ final exam papers, tutorials will help you prepare for the exam.

III. Assessment

The Degree Examination mark for the course will be based on a combination of:

  • Essay (1) = 40%
  • Final Exam = 60%

1. Essay

You are required to write one essay, with the following task:

Write a review essay focusing mainly on ONE ethnographic monograph, paying particular attention to whether and how it reveals the quality of people's lives and experiences.

The essay is to be submitted by 12 noon on Monday 27 February in the essay box on the ground floor of the Chrystal Macmillan Building.

The essay should be submitted with a cover sheet, which asks for information including your examination number, the course you are taking and your tutor’s name. Since all coursework is anonymised, you are identified by your examination number, and not your name (so don’t put your name on page headers/footers). Cover sheets can be found on a table beside the Social Anthropology information point on the Ground Floor CMB.

The essay should be between 1,500 - 2,000 words length. You must provide a word count on the cover sheet. Please note that the word count does not include the bibliography. The penalty for excessive word length in coursework is one mark deducted for each 20 word excess.

As we believe that your time management and organizational skills are part of the challenge, we will automatically deduct 5 marks per working day an essay is overdue, unless special permission for late submission has been sought beforehand. Anticipate computer problems, difficulties in securing readings and ‘pressure’ due to other essays. These are not valid grounds for an extension. For work handed in later than 5 working days after the due date a mark of ‘0’ will be recorded.

If you have good reason for not meeting a coursework deadline, you may request an extension from either your tutor (for extensions of up to five working days) or the course organiser (for extensions of six or more working days), normally before the deadline. A good reason is illness, or serious personal circumstances, but not pressure of work or poor time management. You may be asked to provide supporting evidence (eg. a note from your Director of Studies or your Doctor). DO NOT ask other members of staff.

If you fail to submit all of your coursework without good reason, you will receive a coursework mark of zero.

The essay is marked by your own tutor. The course organizer will second-read a sample of essays from each tutorial group to ensure equal marking standards across tutorial groups. Your degree exam is anonymously marked by tutors and full-time teaching staff.

All work submitted for assessment is accepted on the clear understanding that it is the student’s own work. Every year some students are found copying passages from books or other students’ work without proper citation. This constitutes plagiarism and is considered one of the most serious offences in the academic world. It is dealt with accordingly. Do not copy work from other sources, including the internet. See the link ( for further information on the policy on plagiarism, and how to avoid plagiarism in your work.

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR ESSAY ELECTRONICALLY

‘Turnitin’

The School is now using the ‘Turnitin’ system to check that essays submitted for first and second-year courses do not contain plagiarised material. Turnitin compares every essay against a constantly-updated database, which highlights all plagiarised work.

Instructions for submitting your essay

You must submit one paper copy of your essay in the essay box (Ground FloorCMB) by 12 noon on Monday 27 February. In addition, you must also submit an electronic version via WebCT by the same deadline. (Please note penalties will be incurred if the essay is not submitted on WebCT) The instructions for doing so are as follows:

1. Log in to WebCT via MyEd and click on Social Anthropology 1B.

2. Go to the ‘Click here to submit your essay’ link to submit your essay to the Turnitin assignment inbox.

3. To begin the submission process click on the ‘submit’ icon which is found in the submit column.

4. Your name should be automatically filled in on the form. Type in “Essay” in the submission title as the form cannot be sent unless all the fields are complete.

5. Next, click on the ‘Browse’ button to open your computer’s file browser and use it to browse to the document you wish to submit. Make sure the drop down box at the top of the form still says ‘submit a paper by: file upload’. Before clicking on the ‘submit’ button, make sure that all the fields in the form are complete (if you leave one blank you will receive an error message and the file upload box will be cleared). Click the ‘submit’ button when you are happy you are submitting the correct file.

6. At this point, a plain text version of the essay will be displayed to you (it won’t show any formatting, images, etc.). Review this to ensure you are submitting the correct document (the document itself will be sent to the system in its original format). If you are happy, click on the ‘Submit Paper’ button to submit your assignment. If you have made a mistake you can click on the ‘cancel, go back’ link, which will take you back to the submission form.

7. You’ve now submitted an assignment! A receipt from the system is displayed.

8. Click on the ‘go to portfolio’ link to return to the assignment inbox.

9. On returning to the assignment inbox, you can view your submission to make sure everything is as it should be.

10. Clicking on the title you gave your assignment opens a viewer that displays your submission and also contains the paper ID which can be used by the administrators of the system to identify your work if there is a problem.

11. Clicking on the document icon in the contents column allows you to see your work in its original submitted format.

You can also follow this link for more detailed instructions:

Please note that late submissions are unlikely to be accepted by the Turnitin system and you should contact the Secretary, May Rutherford, if you are unable to submit your electronic copy.

Referencing and bibliography

References and bibliography should follow the author-date system. For example, in the body of an essay:

  • Single author’s quotation or idea referred to: (Smith 1989: 213)
  • Two authors, more than one page: (Johnson & Margolin 1990: 245 - 247)
  • Several authors: (Kennedy et al 1994: 156)
  • Citation of another author’s work in a secondary text: (Baxter 1982 cited in Comaroff 1988: 16)

In your bibliography follow these guidelines:

For a book by one author:

Smith, J G 1989 The Anthropologist as Apprentice: Lessons from the Field, London: Vertigo Press.

For two authors, a chapter in a book:

Johnson, M & P Margolin 1990 'Children at risk' In The Problems of Children on the Streets in Brazil (ed) J Butterfield. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.

For a journal article

Simpson, Bob 1994 'Bringing the "unclear" family into focus: divorce and re-marriage in contemporary Britain' Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 29: 831-851.

Long quotations (more than 4 lines) should be indented with no quotation marks; shorter quotations should be incorporated in the main text with single quotation marks. Author’s name, etc., should appear at end of quote before the full stop.

2. The Final Exam Paper

The Examination consists of one paper and takes place at the end of the semester. It will provide 60% of your Degree Examination mark. In your tutorials, towards the end of the course, you will have the opportunity to prepare for the exam by reviewing course materials, considering revision strategies, practising exam questions, and so on. Details of the exam will be provided at a later date.