Veidlapa Nr. M-3 (8)
Study Course Description
Power and society in Anthropology
Course Code
SZF_264
Branch of Science
Social Anthropology; Sociology and social work
ECTS
6.00
Target Audience
Social Anthropology
LQF
Level 7
Study Type And Form
Full-Time
Study Course Implementer
Course Supervisor
Klāvs Sedlenieks
Structure Unit Manager
Ieva Puzo
Structural Unit
Faculty of Social Sciences
Contacts
SZF, Kuldigas Street 9C, szf@rsu.lv
About Study Course
Objective
The aim of the course is to raise awareness among students of a number of relevant and current anthropological themes regarding the development of different types of power relations, with particular attention to how different categories of power form through the creation, circulation and exchange of values and how it is interwoven with expressions of political power, the state countries, conflicts and their resolution. The course forms a stimulating framework, encouraging critical and conceptual thinking among students and anchors their knowledge and analythical skills within the knowledge of relevant theoretical debates.
Preliminary Knowledge
No specific prior knowledge is required. Excellent reading and writing skills are required, the ability to analytically think and analyse situations and texts, the ability to communicate individually and within a group.
Learning Outcomes
Knowledge
1.Knowledge of atthropological discussions in conjunction with: circulation and power of values
Individual work and tests
Essays on seminar topics • Exam • Seminar participation
2.Is familiar with atthropological discussions in conjunction with: people’s ability and skills to handle conflicts
Individual work and tests
Exam • Seminar participation • Essays on seminar topics
3.Is familiar with atthropological discussions in conjunction with: Power, governance and country
Individual work and tests
Essays on seminar topics • Seminar participation • Exam
Skills
1.Critical analysis of ethnographic cases: Students can interpret and compare ethnographic accounts on power, governance and social inequality, applying appropriate anthropological theories and methods.
Individual work and tests
Seminar participation • Exam • Essays on seminar topics
2.Argumentation and academic writing: Students can construct coherent arguments in essays and presentations, using academic conventions (citation, structure) and communicating complex ideas clearly.
Individual work and tests
Essays on seminar topics • Exam • Seminar participation
3.Communication and teamwork: Students can engage in seminar discussions and group projects, articulating anthropological insights and responding constructively to peers’ perspectives.
Individual work and tests
Seminar participation
Competences
1.Integrative thinking: Students can connect theoretical knowledge about power, value and governance with real-world sociopolitical issues, demonstrating the ability to apply anthropology to contemporary problems.
Individual work and tests
Seminar participation • Essays on seminar topics • Exam
2.Ethical reasoning and intercultural sensitivity: Students are able to evaluate ethical implications of power relations and demonstrate respect for cultural diversity and social justice.
Individual work and tests
Essays on seminar topics • Seminar participation
3.Lifelong learning: Students recognise the need for continuous learning and professional development in anthropology, cultivating self-reflection and adaptability.
Individual work and tests
Seminar participation • Essays on seminar topics
Assessment
Individual work
|
Title
|
% from total grade
|
Grade
|
|---|---|---|
|
1.
Essays on seminar topics |
30.00% from total grade
|
10 points
|
|
Students prepare essays on seminar topics based on read literature and lecture materials |
||
|
2.
Seminar participation |
30.00% from total grade
|
10 points
|
|
Students discuss topics discussed in the seminar based on the read literature, analyse each other’s essays, practice the application of theoretical concepts in the analysis of practical situations. A note assesses how actively students participate in the discussion, how competent they are in analysing the literature in question, whether and how they are able to apply the acquired knowledge in a creative way. |
||
Examination
|
Title
|
% from total grade
|
Grade
|
|---|---|---|
|
1.
Exam |
40.00% from total grade
|
10 points
|
|
Students’ knowledge is verified in oral and/or written face-to-face form (depending on whether or not, in a given academic year, the degree of development of artificial intelligence and technical equipment allow meaningful verification of knowledge in written or oral form. The instructor reviews each year which shape is more appropriate) |
||
Study Course Theme Plan
FULL-TIME
Part 1
-
Lecture
|
Modality
|
Location
|
Contact hours
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|---|---|---|
|
On site
|
Auditorium
|
2
|
Topics
|
Introduction to power, economics, politics and their dimensions in anthropology
Description
A general insight into how anthropology looks at the importance of power in people’s lives, an overview of the theoretical and empirical spectrum, regarding the most important topics covered in this course - power, politics, economics, the circulation of values, and the position of these debates in understanding human society. |
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Lecture
|
Modality
|
Location
|
Contact hours
|
|---|---|---|
|
On site
|
Study room
|
2
|
Topics
|
Reciprocity, exchange, gift as an essential element of human relations and power
Description
Insight into the crux of reciprocity theories, their history, contradictions and related global processes |
-
Class/Seminar
|
Modality
|
Location
|
Contact hours
|
|---|---|---|
|
On site
|
Computer room
|
2
|
Topics
|
Reciprocity, exchange, gift as an essential element of human relations and power
Description
Insight into the crux of reciprocity theories, their history, contradictions and related global processes |
-
Class/Seminar
|
Modality
|
Location
|
Contact hours
|
|---|---|---|
|
On site
|
Study room
|
2
|
Topics
|
Reciprocity, exchange, gift as an essential element of human relations and power
Description
Insight into the crux of reciprocity theories, their history, contradictions and related global processes |
-
Class/Seminar
|
Modality
|
Location
|
Contact hours
|
|---|---|---|
|
On site
|
Study room
|
2
|
Topics
|
Reciprocity, exchange, gift as an essential element of human relations and power
Description
Insight into the crux of reciprocity theories, their history, contradictions and related global processes |
-
Lecture
|
Modality
|
Location
|
Contact hours
|
|---|---|---|
|
On site
|
Auditorium
|
2
|
Topics
|
Anthropology of money
Description
What is money, concepts of money, roles of money, debt and money, power and money |
-
Class/Seminar
|
Modality
|
Location
|
Contact hours
|
|---|---|---|
|
On site
|
Computer room
|
2
|
Topics
|
Anthropology of money
Description
What is money, concepts of money, roles of money, debt and money, power and money |
-
Class/Seminar
|
Modality
|
Location
|
Contact hours
|
|---|---|---|
|
On site
|
Study room
|
2
|
Topics
|
Anthropology of money
Description
What is money, concepts of money, roles of money, debt and money, power and money |
-
Lecture
|
Modality
|
Location
|
Contact hours
|
|---|---|---|
|
On site
|
Auditorium
|
2
|
Topics
|
Peace, cooperation, competition and violence
Description
Human nature - peaceful or violent, exploring peaceful societies, resolving conflicts |
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Class/Seminar
|
Modality
|
Location
|
Contact hours
|
|---|---|---|
|
On site
|
Study room
|
2
|
Topics
|
Peace, cooperation, competition and violence
Description
Human nature - peaceful or violent, exploring peaceful societies, resolving conflicts |
-
Class/Seminar
|
Modality
|
Location
|
Contact hours
|
|---|---|---|
|
On site
|
Study room
|
2
|
Topics
|
Peace, cooperation, competition and violence
Description
Human nature - peaceful or violent, exploring peaceful societies, resolving conflicts |
-
Lecture
|
Modality
|
Location
|
Contact hours
|
|---|---|---|
|
On site
|
Auditorium
|
2
|
Topics
|
The power of interpreting economics
Description
Discussion of what economics is at all and how to interpret it - formalists, substantivists, Marxists and modern anthropology |
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Class/Seminar
|
Modality
|
Location
|
Contact hours
|
|---|---|---|
|
On site
|
Computer room
|
2
|
Topics
|
The power of interpreting economics
Description
Discussion of what economics is at all and how to interpret it - formalists, substantivists, Marxists and modern anthropology |
-
Class/Seminar
|
Modality
|
Location
|
Contact hours
|
|---|---|---|
|
On site
|
Study room
|
2
|
Topics
|
The power of interpreting economics
Description
Discussion of what economics is at all and how to interpret it - formalists, substantivists, Marxists and modern anthropology |
-
Lecture
|
Modality
|
Location
|
Contact hours
|
|---|---|---|
|
On site
|
Auditorium
|
2
|
Topics
|
Relationship between political and economic power
Description
How to interpret and understand the relation between various forms of power; Marxist anthropology and its theoretical implications in anthropology - historically and contemporary, the dark anthropology and its various exit strategies |
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Class/Seminar
|
Modality
|
Location
|
Contact hours
|
|---|---|---|
|
On site
|
Computer room
|
2
|
Topics
|
Relationship between political and economic power
Description
How to interpret and understand the relation between various forms of power; Marxist anthropology and its theoretical implications in anthropology - historically and contemporary, the dark anthropology and its various exit strategies |
-
Class/Seminar
|
Modality
|
Location
|
Contact hours
|
|---|---|---|
|
On site
|
Study room
|
2
|
Topics
|
Relationship between political and economic power
Description
How to interpret and understand the relation between various forms of power; Marxist anthropology and its theoretical implications in anthropology - historically and contemporary, the dark anthropology and its various exit strategies |
-
Lecture
|
Modality
|
Location
|
Contact hours
|
|---|---|---|
|
On site
|
Study room
|
2
|
Topics
|
States, their formation, existence and functioning
Description
Theries of origins of states, problems of definition, various aspects of state existence, state and performance, citizens and subjects, attitude and expectations towards the state |
-
Class/Seminar
|
Modality
|
Location
|
Contact hours
|
|---|---|---|
|
On site
|
Computer room
|
2
|
Topics
|
States, their formation, existence and functioning
Description
Theries of origins of states, problems of definition, various aspects of state existence, state and performance, citizens and subjects, attitude and expectations towards the state |
-
Class/Seminar
|
Modality
|
Location
|
Contact hours
|
|---|---|---|
|
On site
|
Study room
|
2
|
Topics
|
States, their formation, existence and functioning
Description
Theries of origins of states, problems of definition, various aspects of state existence, state and performance, citizens and subjects, attitude and expectations towards the state |
-
Class/Seminar
|
Modality
|
Location
|
Contact hours
|
|---|---|---|
|
On site
|
Study room
|
2
|
Topics
|
States, their formation, existence and functioning
Description
Theries of origins of states, problems of definition, various aspects of state existence, state and performance, citizens and subjects, attitude and expectations towards the state |
-
Lecture
|
Modality
|
Location
|
Contact hours
|
|---|---|---|
|
On site
|
Auditorium
|
2
|
Topics
|
Dark anthrtopology and its others, the role of anthropologists in power relations
Description
Where does anthropology and anthropologists go after the period of the dark anthropology and how do anthropologists position themselves in the world of power |
-
Class/Seminar
|
Modality
|
Location
|
Contact hours
|
|---|---|---|
|
On site
|
Computer room
|
2
|
Topics
|
Dark anthrtopology and its others, the role of anthropologists in power relations
Description
Where does anthropology and anthropologists go after the period of the dark anthropology and how do anthropologists position themselves in the world of power |
-
Class/Seminar
|
Modality
|
Location
|
Contact hours
|
|---|---|---|
|
On site
|
Study room
|
2
|
Topics
|
Dark anthrtopology and its others, the role of anthropologists in power relations
Description
Where does anthropology and anthropologists go after the period of the dark anthropology and how do anthropologists position themselves in the world of power |
Total ECTS (Creditpoints):
6.00
Contact hours:
48 Academic Hours
Final Examination:
Exam
Bibliography
Required Reading
1.
Bloch, Maurice. 1975a. “Property and the End of Affinty”. No Marxist analysis and social anthropology, sast. Maurice Bloch, 203–228. London: Malaby Press.Suitable for English stream
2.
Fry, Douglas P. 2007. Beyond war: the human potential for peace. New York: Oxford University Press.
3.
Graeber, David. 2011. Debt: the first 5,000 years. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Melville House.
4.
Laidlaw, James. 2000. “A Free Gift Makes No Friends”. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 6 (4): 617–634. doi:10.2307/2661033Suitable for English stream
5.
Martin, Felix. 2013. Money. The Unauthorised Biography. London: The Bodley Head
6.
Ortner, Sherry B. 2016. “Dark anthropology and its others Theory since the eighties”. Journal of Ethnographic Theory 6 (1): 47–73. doi:10.14318/hau6.1.004.Suitable for English stream
7.
Overing, Joanna. 2014. “Society against the tyrant. Power violence and the poetics of an Amazonian egalitarianism”. No Contesting the State: the Dynamics of Resistance and Control, sast. Bruce Kapferer un Angela Hobart, 55–86. Wantage: Sean Kingston Publishing.
8.
Parry, Jonathan. 1986. “The Gift, the Indian Gift and the ‘Indian Gift’”. MAN New Series 21: 453–473.
9.
Pickles, Anthony J. 2020. “Transfers: A Deductive Approach to Gifts, Gambles, and Economy at Large”. Current Anthropology 61 (1) (2. februārī): 11–29. doi:10.1086/706880.
10.
Reeves, Madeleine, Johan Rasanayagam un Judith Beyer. 2014. Ethnographies of the state in Central Asia : performing politics. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.Suitable for English stream
11.
Robbins, Joel, Nicolas Langlitz, Emir Mahieddin, Erica Weiss, Corinna Howland, Bruce Knauft un Cheryl Mattingly. 2023. “Anthropology Bright and Dark: Relativism, Value Pluralism, and the Comparative Study of the Good”. Social Analysis 67 (4) (1. decembrī): 43–100. doi:10.3167/sa.2023.670403.
12.
Scott, James C. 1998a. “Cities, People, and Language”. No Seeing like a state: how certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed, 53–84. New Haven: Yale University Press.
13.
Sedlenieks, Klāvs. 2020a. “Liquid crystal and the A1: densities of state from the perspective of a Montenegrin village”. Social Anthropology 28 (2): 496–511. doi:10.1111/1469-8676.12788.Suitable for English stream
14.
Sedlenieks, Klāvs.. 2020b. “Phantom Rebellion: Performing the State in a Montenegrin Village and Beyond”. Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society 45 (1): 29–48. doi:https://doi.org/10.30676/jfas.v45i1.90978.
15.
Sharma, Aradhana un Akhil Gupta, sast. 2006. The anthropology of the state: a reader. Malden, MA; Oxford: Blackwell Pubishing.
16.
Sprenger, Guido, Anthony J. Pickles, Ilana Gershon, Joel Robbins, Rebecca Bryant un Marilyn Strathern. 2023. “Expectations of the Gift: Toward a Future-Oriented Taxonomy of Transactions: Comments on ‘Expectations of the Gift’; Response to Comments”. Social Analysis 67 (1) (1. martā): 70–124. doi:10.3167/sa.2023.670104.
17.
Strathern, Marilyn. 2012. “Gifts money cannot buy”. Social Anthropology 20 (4): 397–410. doi:10.1111/j.1469-8676.2012.00224.x.
18.
Testart, Alain. 2013. “What is a gift?”. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 3 (1): 249–61
19.
Sedlenieks, Klāvs. 2024. “Summary: Kinship and State Performance in Contemporary Latvia”. No Radniecība un valsts īstenošana mūsdienu LatvijāSedlenieks, Klāvs, 306–316. Rīga: Rīgas Stradiņa universitāte. doi:10.25143/rsu-radnieciba_isbn-978-9934-618-45-1.
20.
Jansen, Stef. 2014. “Hope For/Against the State: Gridding in a Besieged Sarajevo Suburb”. Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology 79 (2): 1–23. doi:10.1080/00141844.2012.743469.
Additional Reading
1.
Carrier, James G. 1995. Gifts and Commodities: Exchange and Western Capitalism since 1700. London and New York: Routledge.
2.
Fry, Douglas P., Geneviève Souillac, Larry Liebovitch, Peter T. Coleman, Kane Agan, Elliot Nicholson-Cox, Dani Mason, Frank Palma Gomez un Susie Strauss. 2021. “Societies within peace systems avoid war and build positive intergroup relationships”. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 8 (1) (18. decembrī): 1–17. doi:10.1057/s41599-020-00692-8.Suitable for English stream
3.
Fry, Douglas, sast. 2013. War, Peace, and Human Nature. The Convergence of Evolutionary and Cultural Views. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
4.
Gregor, Thomas. 1996. A natural history of peace. Nashville & London: Vanderbilt University Press.
5.
Innes, Michell A. 1913. “What is Money ?”. The Banking Law Journal (May): 377–408.Suitable for English stream
6.
Kemp, Graham un Douglas P Fry. 2004. Keeping the peace: conflict resolution and peaceful societies around the world. New York: Routledge.
7.
Scott, James C. 1985. Weapons of the weak. New Haven: Yale University Press.
8.
Scott, James C. 1998b. Seeing like a state: how certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed. New Haven: Yale University Press.
9.
Scott, James C. 2009. The art of not being governed: an anarchist history of upland Southeast Asia. New Haven: Yale University Press.
10.
Sponsel, Leslie E un Thomas Gregor. 1994. The Anthropology of peace and nonviolence. Boulder: L. Rienner.
11.
Jansen, Stef. 2015. Yearnings in the Meantime. “Normal Lives” and the State in a Sarajevo Apartment Complex. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books.
12.
Sedlenieks, Klāvs. 2024. Radniecība un valsts īstenošana mūsdienu Latvijā. Rīga: Rīgas Stradiņa universitāte. doi:10.25143/rsu-radnieciba_isbn-978-9934-618-45-1.Suitable for English stream
13.
Sedlenieks, Klāvs. 2012. “Dzīve valsts kabatās. Apzināta izvairīšanās no valsts kā izdzīvošanas (attīstības) stratēģija Latvijas laukos”. No Dzīve, attīstība, labbūtība Latvijas Laukos, sast. Agnese Cimdiņa un Ieva Raubiško, 88–117. Rīga: Zinātne.