BA (Hons) Anthropology & Visual Practice

In the first two years, you'll concentrate on basic anthropological concepts – such as kinship, politics, economics and religion, as well as world systems and development – and on methods of studying and analysing these. You will also study ethnography and at least one region of the world in depth.

There's a substantial practical component to this degree, constituting a sixth of the course load in all three years. This includes training in:

• Photography
• Videography
• Editing
• Specialist software

In your final year you can specialise by choosing from a selection of option topics, and will produce a documentary film and dissertation based on individual study.

Year 1 (credit level 4) Year 1 modules Module title Credits. Introduction to Social Anthropology Introduction to Social Anthropology 30 credits

This module introduces basic anthropological concepts of kinship, politics, economics, and religion and the history and theoretical schools of anthropology.

30 credits. Anthropological Methods Anthropological Methods 15 credits

This module explores aspects of anthropological methods. You study the following areas: data collection techniques and implications of type and quality of data; participant observation: techniques involved, its evolution and change; analytical approaches to primary data, re-analyses of secondary sources; the philosophy of science; value free social science, interaction between observer and observed, perception and ‘fact’.

15 credits. Ethnographic Film Ethnographic Film 15 credits

This module aims to encourage a critical appreciation of ethnographic film, introducing some of the growing literature on visual anthropology, and raising general issues of representation in anthropology as a whole.

15 credits. Anthropological Ideas Anthropological Ideas 15 credits

This module explores the intellectual history of Anthropology, examining key ideas and introducing thinkers that have had significant impact on the discipline. It will focus on a particular sub-field and will explore in depth the ways that different theoretical and methodological approaches are developed in one specific area of research and writing.

15 credits. Introduction to Visual Practice Introduction to Visual Practice 30 credits

This module will introduce you to key areas in the history and practice of image use in Anthropological research and publication. You will also have hands on training on a number of professional software packages, as well as high level visual and audio production equipment (cameras, recorders, microphones).

30 credits. Year 2 (credit level 5) Year 2 modules Module title Credits. Politics, Economics and Social Change Politics, Economics and Social Change 30 credits

Politics, Economics and Social Change introduces you to the core concepts and theories relating to economic and political organisations and the problem of accounting for change, both empirically and theoretically.

To familiarise you with a number of empirical contexts in order that you may be able to conceptualise the complex socio-economic processes that are affecting the peripheral areas that have long been the concern of anthropologists.

To explore a number of contemporary problems relating to such issues as the apparent contradiction between local or national autonomy and globalisation that do not fit easily into definitions of the "economic" or "political".

30 credits. Thinking Anthropologically Thinking Anthropologically 15 credits

This module is concerned with key ways of thinking that have shaped and continue to shape the discipline of social anthropology. As such, the module is intended to augment what you have learned in the first year and to help consolidate your sense of how important concepts in social anthropology fit together.

The focus of the module is how the discipline’s main 20th century schools of thought have developed, how they relate to one another and what they have contributed to our understandings of the world.

Our concern is with the different ways in which anthropologists have conceived of ‘culture’ and ‘society’ in their efforts to account for the myriad of ways in which humans live.

We shall explore how these approaches to anthropology compete with, and sometimes contradict, one another and how these dynamics have driven the discipline through the political landscape of the twentieth century to where we are now so that we can, in the last, pause to envisage where we can and should go next.

15 credits. Anthropology and the Visual 1 Anthropology and the Visual 1 15 credits

This module provides a critical introduction to the many ways anthropologists engage with the visual, from their use of visual methodologies and analysis of representations, to their ethnographic study of everyday visual forms. Focusing on a wide range of visual media, from photography, museum exhibitions and popular representations on TV, to dress, body art, architecture and other everyday visual and material forms, the module raises issues about the significance of visibility, the politics of representation, the social life of visual and material forms and the relationship between seeing and other senses.

15 credits. Advanced Visual Practice Advanced Visual Practice 30 credits

Adnvanced Visual Practice will build on technical skills introduced in the first year of the programme and will ask you to investigate how theory relates to your practice. You will explore the relationship between theory and practice in image use in Anthropological research and publication. You will also have hands on training in a number of professional level software packages, as well as high level visual and audio equipment (cameras, recorders, microphones).

30 credits. Anthropology at Work Anthropology at Work 15 credits

The aim of the module is to explore some of the different ways that anthropologists use theory in designing and doing research and to create and extend theoretical arguments in and through ethnography. In doing so we seek also to further foreground the possibility for both ‘other’ anthropologies and anthropologies ‘otherwise’.

15 credits.

You also choose one of the following modules:

Year 2 option modules Module title Credits. Ethnography of a Selected Region II Ethnography of a Selected Region II 15 credits

This module explores the ethnography of a specific region, which may change from year to year. Through detailed reading of ethnography, as well as films and other relevant media, major themes of anthropology such as identity, community, local and global politics, inequality and processes of social and economic change are explored.

15 credits. Anthropology of Religion Anthropology of Religion 15 or 30 credits

This module is worth 15 credits if you study it at Level 6 and 30 credits if you study it at Level 7.

Questioning the category of religion, this module will introduce you to the sociological thought which has informed the anthropology of religious phenomena and will highlight the specificity of anthropological approaches which combine comparative, historical and ethnographic methodologies and concerns. Focussing on both ‘world religions’ and more localised cosmologies and practices, you will learn about different anthropological approaches (structuralist, Marxist, phenomenological, symbolic and cognitive) which emphasise different dimensions of religious practice and experience. You will also be encouraged to think about the relevance of these approaches for understanding the continued persistence, salience and transformation of religious ideas and practices in the contemporary world.

15 or 30 credits. Year 3 (credit level 6)

This level is made up of 120 credits.

You take an Individual Studies with Practice module, worth 30 credits. This module is a research project of your own choosing and design, the topic to be agreed with the member of the department who acts as supervisor.

You also take option modules, recent examples of which include:

Year 3 option modules Module title Credits. Anthropology of Art I Anthropology of Art I 15 or 30 credits

This module is worth 15 credits if you study it at Level 6 and 30 credits if you study it at Level 7.

Modern Anthropology has had an uneasy relation with art and with objects and images in general. The reaction against the museum anthropology of the 19th century led to a certain iconoclasm in the discipline. Yet a hundred years later, the interest of anthropologists on art, and conversely, of artists in Anthropology, is blooming. But this is not so contradictory: in fact modern anthropology and modern art are very close from their origin, in their critical reflection on the relation of images, objects and persons. In this module, we will discuss first the questions that the anthropological tradition has opened up on the relation of things, images and persons. Is the value of objects a human construction? Do objects have agency? Are images, representations? What are the arguments for idolatry and iconoclasm? All these questions are necessary preludes to understand the anthropological approach to art in the modern world. They will enable us to ask what characterises 'art' as a form of social value in our society, as well as how objects and images from other societies are valued as 'art'.

15 or 30 credits. Anthropology of Art II Anthropology of Art II 15 or 30 credits

This module is worth 15 credits if you study it at Level 6 and 30 credits if you study it at Level 7.

This module is designed to offer students the opportunity to conduct a short piece of research in the field broadly defined as the Anthropology of Art. Picking up on theoretical issues introduced in Anthropology of Art I, you will be expected to select your own topic for fieldwork. You may wish to analyse the practice of a particular artist (especially one whose work relates to ethnography in some way), concentrate on aspects of art institutions in London (techniques of display, audiences, exhibitions), or on lives of art objects (their production, consumption, circulation, interpretation). Key issues include: aesthetics and the culture industry: the role of the avant-garde: Frankfurt School critical theory: popular art, resistance and accommodation: the rise of film criticism: museums and collecting.

15 or 30 credits. Anthropology of Development Anthropology of Development 15 credits

This core module will enable you to explore the theoretical concepts underpinning development, the history of development and its institutions – from NGOs to the World Bank and IMF, while considering diverse case studies from around the world. You will also explore the historical role of anthropology’s involvement in development, as official mediators between ‘the West and the rest’ through imperial conquest, colonial administration and a post-war development industry.

As a central component of the module you will critically analyse current trends that have emerged to dominate the field of global political and economic interventions and/or policies – ‘participation and empowerment’, ‘gender awareness’, ’sustainable development’, ‘community development’, ‘NGOs’, and ‘environmental conservation’.

15 credits. Anthropology of Development Anthropology of Development 15 credits

This core module will enable you to explore the theoretical concepts underpinning development, the history of development and its institutions – from NGOs to the World Bank and IMF, while considering diverse case studies from around the world. You will also explore the historical role of anthropology’s involvement in development, as official mediators between ‘the West and the rest’ through imperial conquest, colonial administration and a post-war development industry.

As a central component of the module you will critically analyse current trends that have emerged to dominate the field of global political and economic interventions and/or policies – ‘participation and empowerment’, ‘gender awareness’, ’sustainable development’, ‘community development’, ‘NGOs’, and ‘environmental conservation’.

15 credits. Anthropology and the Environment Anthropology and the Environment 15 credits

The module examines anthropological understandings of human-environment relations and their bearing on public discourses of environmentalism. It deals with: different ways of encountering biophysical surroundings across societies; European traditions of environmental thought and their impacts; management practices, colonialism, and cultural elaboration of the idea of nature; environmental social movements, identity politics and social justice in environmentalism.

15 credits. Anthropology and Gender Theory Anthropology and Gender Theory 15 or 30 credits

This module is worth 15 credits if you study it at Level 6 and 30 credits if you study it at Level 7.

This module explores the inter-relationship of gender, sexuality and the body both within western cultures and western social theory, and in a range of other cultural and historical contexts. Emphasising the ways in which the body and gender have been produced/imagined differently in diverse times and places, it focuses on both classical and current anthropological topics including:

• The status of the body – biological or cultural
• Decoration, modification and transformation of bodies
• Distinctions between sex and gender
• Alternative sex and gender systems
• Kinship, marriage and chosen families
• New reproductive technologies
• Identity politics and queer theory
• Theories of performance/practice
• Violence, resistance and power politics
15 or 30 credits. Anthropology of Violence Anthropology of Violence 15 credits

This module examines a variety of anthropological approaches to the study of violence, ranging from evolutionary explanations for male aggression to studies of changing American attitudes toward terrorism in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. It looks critically at the theoretical, methodological and ethical questions raised in studies of violence through ethnographic case studies from around the world.

The module considers attempts to define violence as a concept in the social sciences and explores the possible causes, meanings, and uses of violent practices from a variety of different cultural contexts and perspectives. It gives particular attention to the political and economic conditions that promote war and other violent behaviour as well as specific cultural expressions within violent practices.

We will also discuss ethnographic descriptions of “peaceful societies” and examine the ways in which peace is made in the aftermath of conflict. In addition to the required and additional readings, the module will also include a number of films that coincide with weekly topics.

15 credits. Anthropology and the Visual II Anthropology and the Visual II 30 credits

This module will explore the role of visual representation in anthropology in terms of both the history of its use within the discipline, and also the potential it holds for new ways of working. We will look at work in a wide range of media – photography, film/video, performance – and the ways in which they might be used in an anthropological context, and this will involve looking at work from outside anthropology such as photojournalism and contemporary art, as well as the work of visual anthropologists. The intention of the module it to provide a strong theoretical background for those students going to take the Anthropology and the Visual Production Course in the spring term, and to give students a challenging and creative view of the potentials of visual material within anthropology.

30 credits. Anthropology and the Visual: Production Course Anthropology and the Visual: Production Course 15 credits

Following on from Anthropology and the Visual II, this is a practically based module in which you will explore the techniques of video-making/photography.

15 credits. The Anthropology of Rights The Anthropology of Rights 15 credits

This module encourages you to engage critically with the rights discourses that underpin development agendas in the contemporary world. You will consider the historical evolution of rights discourses, the institutions that have been established to uphold rights, the language of Human Rights used in international law, as well as the concept of rights as understood by development organisations, governments and multilaterals (such as the UN).

You will also analyse the cross-cutting – and often competing – claims made in the name of, for example, gender and child rights, indigenous rights, intellectual property rights, animal and environmental rights, customary law and bioethics.

The module provides an opportunity to explore the concept and discourses of rights in relation to numerous contemporary social issues (such as natural disasters, constitutional reform, war crimes tribunals, environmental disputes and gender politics), and consider the purchase