Space, Culture and Globalization

Recommended Prerequisites

 Theory and History of Anthropology, working knowledge of the English language (reading skills). 

Teaching Methods

There are both theoretical and practical classes. In the latter, students will be able to become acquainted with a number of texts that are central to the research areas mentioned in the theoretical classes, with the aim of developing their analytical and critical skills. Debate on those texts will be stimulated in order to develop also their argumentative and expository skills. Students will have to prepare and present a critical review of the texts read and discussed in class, demonstrating their abilities in summarizing ideas and in writing, as well as their creativity. 

Learning Outcomes

The aim of this course is to introduce students to fundamental concepts of culture and space, taking into account the way these two variables intersect in the anthropological canon.Students should acquire a set of skills related to the critical and reflective use of the main bibliography. This form of active knowledge is exploited by producing an individual argument about the contents of the course.  

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

1. Interrogating the identification of culture and territory.

2. Interrogating the confinement of each culture to a defined and delimited place in the anthropological map.

3. Rethinking the concept of culture – from a static, closed and homogeneous entity to one that includes hybridization, change and diversity.

4. Analyzing Marc Augé’s concept of non-places. Non-places as places of transience, the negative of anthropological places, places of non-relations, absence of history, non-identity. Augé gives the example of airports, motorways, supermarkets.

5. The construction of places of belonging and identity in situations of transience and displacement.  

Head Lecturer(s)

Sandra Isabel de Oliveira e Xavier Pereira

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Frequency: 50.0%
Synthesis work: 50.0%

Bibliography

 Appadurai, A., 2000 (1996), “Disjuntura e diferença na economia cultural Global” in Dimensões Culturais da Globalização, Lisboa, Editorial Teorema, pp. 43-70.

Augé, M., 1994, Não-Lugares: Introdução a uma Antropologia da Sobremodernidade, Venda Nova, Bertrand Editora, 1994.

 

Cuche, D., 1999, A Noção de Cultura nas Ciências Sociais, Lisboa, Fim de Século.

Gupta, A. e Ferguson, J., 1992, “Beyond ‘culture’: Space, Identity, and the Politics of Difference” in Cultural Anthropology, vol. 7, Nº1.

Leal, J., 2000, Etnografias Portuguesas (1879-1970), Lisboa, Publicações Dom Quixote.

Low, S. e Lawrence-Zúñiga, D. (Ed.), 2003, The Anthropology of Space and Place. Locating Culture, Oxford, Blackwell Publishing.

 

 

Olwig, K. F. e Hastrup, K. (Ed.), 1997, Siting Culture. The Shifting Anthropological Object, Londres/Nova Iorque, Routledge.

 

 Prista, M., 2006, “Construção do Património Colonial em Timor-Leste e Identidade Nacional” in Seixas, P. C. e Engelenhoven, A. (Org.), Diversidade Cultural na Construção da Nação e do Estado em Timor-Leste, Porto, Universidade Fernando Pessoa