29642b

SoSe 21: Anthropology, 'Race' and Racism Globally

Nasima Selim

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Course description:This course introduces undergraduate students to postcolonial, intersectional, and critical race theories to deepen the understanding of race and racism locally and globally. The students are invited to engage in critical reflection about their self-positioning in society and the anthropological discipline. We will discuss historical, ethnographic, and interdisciplinary case studies that deal with race, racialized identities and discourses, and contemporary structural racism. The first part will draw from historical perspectives on anthropology as a (post)colonial discipline (Asad 1973). The second part will focus on understanding specific formations of racism, for example, anti-Black and anti-Muslim racism, with ethnographic case studies from Germany, India, and the United States. The third part examines racialized ecologies and the Anthropocene and Plantationocene discourses in the company of Black feminist scholars (Jegathesan 2021, Vergès 2017). The course concludes with the discussion of ensuring diversity in anthropology and engaging in public anthropology to counter structural racism in the wider society. Key References Asad, Talal. 1979 [1973]. “Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter”. In The Politics of Anthropology: From Colonialism to Sexism Toward a View from Below, edited by Gerrit Huizer and Bruce Mannheim, 85-96. The Hague: Mouton Publishers. Jegathesan, Mythri. 2021. "Black Feminist Plots before the Plantationocene and Anthropology's “Regional Closets”." Feminist Anthropology. https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/fea2.12037 close