Politics, power and resistance

In social anthropology, it is central to understand how power relations permeate social life and shape the distribution of social, cultural and economic privilege in society. In this course, students are introduced to central perspectives within political anthropology, with an emphasis on important concepts for analyzes of power. Concepts such as authority, legitimacy, ideology, sovereignty, biopolitics, hegemony - counter-hegemony, discourse and resistance are deepened through engagement with fields where social anthropologists make important research contributions to the understanding of power relations. Examples of such fields are the state, nationalism, ethnicity, identity politics, organized violence and conflict, international migration, minority politics, political and social movements, and globalisation. The course aims to develop the student's abilities to recognize and critically analyze power relations in everyday social relations and social and political structures. Through the course, the students will also get the opportunity to reflect on their own position in power structures. Knowledge/power relations within anthropology are problematized in the light of critical perspectives within, for example, feminist, postcolonial and decolonial theory.

Bachelor

Autumn