MA Social Anthropology and Intensive Language P4 (Chinese)

The module is designed for taught postgraduate students who have no or limited knowledge of the Chinese language. It is an integrated beginners module aimed at introducing modern Chinese to students who require intensive language training and aims at developing basic speaking, listening, reading, writing, and translation skills.

This module is a core component of the two-year programmes with Intensive Language (Chinese). Classes are taught in Chinese by academic staff at a university in China over a period of six weeks during the summer (July/August). Assessment is conducted at SOAS upon return. The intensive classroom environment and immersion experience of living and studying in China is designed to facilitate the student’s ability to build fluency within the appropriate daily social and cultural contexts.

702 Ethnographic Research Methods takes research methods as philosophically and practically exciting techniques and attitudes that allow us to know and understand the world better. To know anthropological research methodology is better to understand the self, which is to better understand anthropological research methodology. The material addresses the history and foundations of anthropological knowledge, and describes some of the key concepts in anthropological methodology by using 'ethnographic writing' as a guide. The module encourages self-reflexivity, ethical conduct, and an anticipatory awareness of research practice and design.

This module guides students through key concepts and theories that have underpinned the discipline of social/cultural anthropology over the last five decades, with particular attention to how theoretical concerns and orientations are continually rethought and retooled to address contemporary conditions. The module consciously departs from the conventional “canon” (i.e., the “founding fathers” approach) to offer a more inclusive and vibrant picture of the discipline’s (post-1960s) theoretical shifts. But it does so without overlooking the reverberations of anthropology’s past colonial entanglements, and without giving up its older core question: what does it mean to be human? Weekly class sessions and readings address a variety of topics across the anthropological spectrum, without diluting their analytical and empirical richness.

A Dissertation of 10,000 words (excluding bibliography, appendices, etc., but including footnotes) is a required element of all MA Anthropology Degrees. The topic of the dissertation is left to students to decide according to their interests and subject to the agreement of the relevant Programme Convenor. The dissertation should show an appropriate command of anthropological theory and the relevant literature, as well as the capacity to apply this to the topic in question. Students should also demonstrate an understanding of the specialised field of their degree.

This module is concerned with the ways the mind and mental illness are understood in different cultural contexts. We explore the cultural and historical shaping of Western psychiatry and its interaction with other diagnostic and healing traditions. Are psychiatric diagnostic categories like depression or PTSD universal or culturally and historically specific, bound to particular notions of mind, body or spirit? Is Western psychiatric knowledge imposed on other societies through Global Mental Health, or does the expansion of evidence-based treatments address a critical ‘treatment gap’? Is the globally rising diagnosis of mental disorders a consequence of new stressors, undiagnosed conditions or the medicalisation of ordinary sadness and coping responses? How might we understand the relationship between brain biology, adverse life experiences, and culturally experienced illness? How does social inequality, discrimination and abuse affect mental health? Is trauma a universally meaningful idea? The module uses ethnographic research, cultural psychiatry and anthropological theory to explore such questions.

This course offers an exploration of the formation of diasporas and their cultural politics. It looks at how diasporic subjectivities are formed through gendered aesthetic practices and performances, which can take on and signify religious, cultural, political meanings, which are in turn constantly negotiated, hybridised and re-fashioned across bodies, times and spaces.

In this module we explore the complex and often paradoxical relationship between place, mobilities and food. We critically interrogate claims made about food system 'delocalisation', 'deskilling' and 'gastro-anomie'. We examine food markets, street foods and restaurants as sites of both cultural production and labour exploitation, of social interaction, cosmopolitanism and open debate, and of social control, surveillance and spatial cleansing. We explore contemporary forms of ethical food activism, including in the digital realm, and consider the complex role of food in migration.

This module deepens student understanding of key concepts in medical anthropology with a special focus on a) the materiality of bodies, substances, and practices, and b) science and technology studies that explore how knowledge comes into being, how it gains traction in the world, and how it shapes existing subjectivities and creates new ways of being and relating.

This option module is open to all students interested in understanding major transitions in the conceptualisation of the social since the 1960s. Highlighting important currents in poststructuralist thought in anthropology and beyond, the module explores sources of new ideas and frameworks that are themselves of fundamental significance to all humanities and social science scholars. The module guides students to engage with and critically evaluate the theoretical underpinnings of social anthropology as a field of inquiry, and the ways these have been rethought in the face of recent historical and political shifts inclusive of decolonisation and neoliberalism. It introduces new vital concepts and currents, themselves the result of intense interdisciplinary encounters between anthropology on the one hand, and sociology, history, philosophy and political science, on the other.

This module introduces students to ethnographic studies in and of a particular region in Sub-Saharan Africa, its resident populations, and its diasporas, viewed through a variety of interconnected topics that have been important in the anthropological literature. With a particular focus on West Africa, East Africa, or Southern Africa, students will have the opportunity to explore classic and contemporary anthropological themes such as social organization, political economy, religion, gender and sexuality, race/ethnicity, personhood, the body, consumption, labour and livelihoods, violence and justice, and social identities, as they take shape in particular locales. The module also encourages students to consider how anthropological and historical understandings help us to recognize the fundamentally interconnected and global nature of any nation, subregion, or region, whose boundaries are often designated or shift as a result of colonial, post-colonial, and neo-colonial social processes and power relations.

This module introduces students to ethnographic studies in and of the Near and Middle East, the region's resident populations, and its diasporas, viewed through a variety of interconnected topics that have been important in the anthropological literature. The module draws on material on countries such as Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Palestine, and may also include literature on Muslims in South East Asia and Europe. Students will have the opportunity to explore classic and contemporary anthropological themes such as social organization, political economy, religion, gender and sexuality, race/ethnicity, violence and justice, consumption, labour and livelihoods, and social identities, as they take shape in particular locales. The module also encourages students to consider how anthropological and historical understandings help us to recognize the fundamentally interconnected and global nature of any nation, subregion, or region, whose boundaries are often designated or shift as a result of colonial, post-colonial, and neo-colonial social processes and power relations.

The module provides students with a general knowledge of Chinese and practice of using Chinese in a variety of general situations. It allows students to interact with Chinese speakers in Chinese.

This module is concerned with the ways the mind and mental illness are understood in different cultural contexts. We explore the cultural and historical shaping of Western psychiatry and its interaction with other diagnostic and healing traditions. Are psychiatric diagnostic categories like depression or PTSD universal or culturally and historically specific, bound to particular notions of mind, body or spirit? Is Western psychiatric knowledge imposed on other societies through Global Mental Health, or does the expansion of evidence-based treatments address a critical ‘treatment gap’? Is the globally rising diagnosis of mental disorders a consequence of new stressors, undiagnosed conditions or the medicalisation of ordinary sadness and coping responses? How might we understand the relationship between brain biology, adverse life experiences, and culturally experienced illness? How does social inequality, discrimination and abuse affect mental health? Is trauma a universally meaningful idea? The module uses ethnographic research, cultural psychiatry and anthropological theory to explore such questions.

This course offers an exploration of the formation of diasporas and their cultural politics. It looks at how diasporic subjectivities are formed through gendered aesthetic practices and performances, which can take on and signify religious, cultural, political meanings, which are in turn constantly negotiated, hybridised and re-fashioned across bodies, times and spaces.

In this module we explore the complex and often paradoxical relationship between place, mobilities and food. We critically interrogate claims made about food system 'delocalisation', 'deskilling' and 'gastro-anomie'. We examine food markets, street foods and restaurants as sites of both cultural production and labour exploitation, of social interaction, cosmopolitanism and open debate, and of social control, surveillance and spatial cleansing. We explore contemporary forms of ethical food activism, including in the digital realm, and consider the complex role of food in migration.

This module deepens student understanding of key concepts in medical anthropology with a special focus on a) the materiality of bodies, substances, and practices, and b) science and technology studies that explore how knowledge comes into being, how it gains traction in the world, and how it shapes existing subjectivities and creates new ways of being and relating.

This option module is open to all students interested in understanding major transitions in the conceptualisation of the social since the 1960s. Highlighting important currents in poststructuralist thought in anthropology and beyond, the module explores sources of new ideas and frameworks that are themselves of fundamental significance to all humanities and social science scholars. The module guides students to engage with and critically evaluate the theoretical underpinnings of social anthropology as a field of inquiry, and the ways these have been rethought in the face of recent historical and political shifts inclusive of decolonisation and neoliberalism. It introduces new vital concepts and currents, themselves the result of intense interdisciplinary encounters between anthropology on the one hand, and sociology, history, philosophy and political science, on the other.

This module introduces students to ethnographic studies in and of a particular region in Sub-Saharan Africa, its resident populations, and its diasporas, viewed through a variety of interconnected topics that have been important in the anthropological literature. With a particular focus on West Africa, East Africa, or Southern Africa, students will have the opportunity to explore classic and contemporary anthropological themes such as social organization, political economy, religion, gender and sexuality, race/ethnicity, personhood, the body, consumption, labour and livelihoods, violence and justice, and social identities, as they take shape in particular locales. The module also encourages students to consider how anthropological and historical understandings help us to recognize the fundamentally interconnected and global nature of any nation, subregion, or region, whose boundaries are often designated or shift as a result of colonial, post-colonial, and neo-colonial social processes and power relations.

This module introduces students to ethnographic studies in and of the Near and Middle East, the region's resident populations, and its diasporas, viewed through a variety of interconnected topics that have been important in the anthropological literature. The module draws on material on countries such as Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Palestine, and may also include literature on Muslims in South East Asia and Europe. Students will have the opportunity to explore classic and contemporary anthropological themes such as social organization, political economy, religion, gender and sexuality, race/ethnicity, violence and justice, consumption, labour and livelihoods, and social identities, as they take shape in particular locales. The module also encourages students to consider how anthropological and historical understandings help us to recognize the fundamentally interconnected and global nature of any nation, subregion, or region, whose boundaries are often designated or shift as a result of colonial, post-colonial, and neo-colonial social processes and power relations.