An examination of the often contradictory tensions between subordinate groups and national identities, and between these groups and state institutions. In addition to theoretical materials, case studies will be analyzed, enabling a comparison between the classic cases of state formation and the different forms these processes took in the Third World. The course also explores the difficulties of studying complex societies with traditional ethnographic methods, and discusses methodologies which have been used to understand the nation and state from an anthropological perspective. Identity Formation and Social Reproduction. Health, Globalization, and the Post-Colonial Transition.
Development is a contested ground on which globalization and competing knowledge systems engage.
It is also the ground on which both implicit and explicit social engineering is enacted as a social and political strategy. The Anthropology of Resource Frontiers. An examination of the position of indigenous peoples on the world's resource frontiers and the national and global relations they must negotiate. Language and Symbol. A seminar focusing on the theoretical aspects of the analysis of language as a symbol system in its relationship to other aspects of social life emphasizing the articulation of linguistic theory, symbolic interaction, ethnography of communication and interpretive practice.