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MA Social Anthropology (New Frontiers)

If you choose the specialism in New Frontiers, you will study the following modules:

1. (ANT7007) Anthropological Methods in Context and Practice (Semester 1)

Key objectives: To teach you how to use the main methods of anthropological field research and to
make you critically aware of the place of such methods in the discipline.

Teaching methods: One seminar per week for twelve weeks throughout the first semester.

Learning outcomes: A good understanding of the methodological distinctiveness of anthropology; a good knowledge of the appropriateness of anthropological methods – quantitative as well as qualitative; the ability to critique the methodology underpinning anthropological work; and the capacity to put anthropological methods into practice.

Assessment methods: Completion of one assignment (100%).

2. (ANT7009): Ethnographic Writing in Social Anthropology (Semester 1)

Content: The module will review a number of ethnographic texts in anthropology. The texts are chosen for their representativeness of particular theoretical trends in anthropology, and for their suitability for illustrating particular theoretical or analytical issues. Texts will be analysed for the structure of their arguments, for the ways in which claims to authority are established, and for the theoretical lineages and debates in which their authors participate.

Key objectives: To provide a basis for an evaluation of key ethnographic texts in terms of the structure of their arguments; to show how those texts fit with current theoretical discussions in the field of anthropology; to provide an advanced understanding of how ethnographic 'authority' is sought in anthropology.

Teaching methods: One seminar per week for twelve weeks throughout the first semester.

Learning outcomes: A detailed knowledge of some key ethnographic texts in anthropology; an advanced knowledge of how ethnographic writing is constructed and can be evaluated; an advanced understanding of how ethnography is used to support theoretical arguments an advanced knowledge of the nature and extent of diversity within ethnographic writing.

Assessment methods: One essay (40%) and a learning journal (60%).

3. (ANT7008): Anthropological Perspectives (Semester 2)

Content: The module focuses on a core of influential analytical perspectives, studied through readings that demonstrate both the continuities and shifts in the discipline. The topics covered include anthropological and local perspectives; philosophical approaches in anthropology; new insights from studies on suffering, trauma, memory, and the emotions; visual anthropology as part of the debate of ‘ways of seeing’; perspectives on environmentalism, materiality, space, place and landscape; the connections between tradition, modernity and authenticity; and finally, human rights and their connection to the person and morality.

Assessment methods: One essay of 4000 to 4500 words.

Key objectives: To offer students more advanced understandings of anthropological perspectives, and to prepare them for the main specialist areas available at MA level.

Teaching methods: One seminar per week for twelve weeks throughout the second semester.

Learning outcomes: A sound knowledge of the distinctiveness of anthropological perspectives and of the continuities and shifts in the discipline.

4. (ANT7010): Frontiers of Anthropology OR (ANT7049) Anthropology of Tourism (below) (Semester 2)

Content:  The module uses examples from social anthropological investigation and interpretation to illustrate ideas and trajectories which have challenged but at the same time guided the discipline. Examples are chosen which push the ‘frontiers’ of anthropological understanding and which generate lively debate. The focus will be on the anthropologists and how they create and order knowledge through their location of themselves among their subjects and how that is reflected in their writings. This will be done by focusing on selected ethnographies and writings.

Learning outcomes: To provide an understanding of challenges that anthropology has faced and
how anthropologists may have pushed some of the discipline’s core ideas. To demonstrate the
nature of anthropological thought by showing how it creates and addresses particular ethnographic and theoretical issues.

Teaching methods: One seminar per week for twelve weeks throughout the second semester, mainly led by students.

Assessment methods: One essay of 4000-4500 words.

4. (ANT7049): The Anthropology of Tourism (Semester 2)

This module will explore contemporary issues and concerns in tourism from an anthropological perspective.  It will look primarily at the effects and implications of tourism upon local environments and indigenous peoples, and their strategies of engagement and responses of resistance.  The module will use regional materials and cases such as from Northern Ireland, Australia, and the Caribbean to examine the following topics: the tourist’s gaze and calculus; ethical behaviour and responsible practice in tourism; tourism, the law and cultural heritage; authenticity, performance and representation in the tourism context; development, the environment and tourism; mobility, routes and the future of tourism.

Students should acquire a broad understanding and concern for tourist behaviour and tourism’s effects upon indigenous peoples and regional places; to have a working appreciation and understanding of the tourism context in key ethnographic regions; to have demonstrated an up-to-date knowledge of key debates in tourism; to evince best practice in tourism.

Recommended Reading:

MacCannell, D. (1989) The Tourist - A New Theory of the Leisure Class, New York: Schocken Books.
Sheller, M. (2003) Consuming the Caribbean: from Arawaks to Zombies. London and New York: Routledge.
Bruner, E. (2005) Culture on Tour: Ethnographies of Travel. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
S. Coleman and M. Crang (eds) Tourism: Between Place and Performance. Oxford: Berghahn Books.

5. (ANT7014): Dissertation

Content: Students will be required to prepare a research proposal and a dissertation, the topic of which will be selected in consultation with a supervisor who has expertise in the selected specialist area. The supervisor will normally, but not necessarily, be one of the teachers on the student's chosen specialist module. Students should submit to the module convenor a working title and brief abstract, on the basis of which s/he will allocate supervisors for Dissertation research. The deadline for this is Friday 5 December 2008. In consultation with supervisors, MA students will then prepare a research proposal and risk assessment by 30 April 2009. The format of MA dissertation proposals should be as follows: proposal abstract (approx. 250 words); justification (approx. 1,500 words); methodology (approx. 1,500 words); bibliography. It should be submitted together with a Risk Assessment Form. The dissertation should be 12,000 words, submitted by 15 September 2009.

Key objectives: This module will set out to develop the following skills in employing methods of data construction and analysis to address anthropological questions in the particular sub-field to which each of the new MA Degrees relate:

• Retrieval of information from a range of sources.
• Research planning (setting research questions, scheduling, budgeting, risk assessment).
• Field research skills, such as establishing contact and rapport with people, asking questions sensitively, conducting interviews, applying questionnaires, and engaging in participant observation.

Written and verbal feedback will be given to students on their performance and used both to elaborate upon assessments of their work and to give direction and encouragement for further development of subject-specific skills.

Teaching methods: Direct teaching and training in connection with the dissertation will be provided via one-to-one supervision by an appropriate member of staff. As convenor of this module, the Postgraduate Coordinator will be responsible for allocating supervisors.

Assessment methods: The dissertation will be marked by two internal examiners and the external examiner for postgraduate modules in Social Anthropology. Although the research proposal will not be given a mark, its submission will be a formal requirement for completion of the module. This module will be double weighted – the dissertation mark will be treated as two final marks when calculating the final degree.