Italian. Explanations in English can be given on request.
Explications en Français peuvent etre données sur demande.
Course Content
The first part of the course analyzes the development of fieldwork methodology in the UK, USA, France, Italy. The different approaches shall be examined in relation to the theories characterizing the various schools. The instructor will subsequently present his own researches showing the relations between theory and practice in his work. The second part shall focus on the contribution of anthropology to the analysis of conflicts. Ethnographic films shall be used as materials for discussion.
Cacopardo, Augusto S., "Pagan Christmas. Winter Feasts of the Kalasha of the Hindu Kush". Gingko Library. London 2016.
English versions of the other prescribed readings are available. Contact the teacher if in need.
Learning Objectives
The class has the aim of giving students a historical knowledge about the methodological debate in ethnography with special attention to the role of anthropology in the analysis of present-day conflicts and to the problems of field research in situations of violent conflict.
Prerequisites
Previous attendance of a class in Cultural Anthropology is helpful, though not mandatory.
Teaching Methods
The class has the form of a seminar: the instructor introduces a selection of texts that the students are invited to read and comment in the following meetings. Frontal lectures are therefore alternated with interactive ones. Ethnographic films are equally followed by moments of collective reflection and discussion.
Type of Assessment
Final mark upon oral examination. Students who attend class have a reduced programme of readings (see the list above) and are evaluated on the basis of their participation to class-room discussions and of a brief paper or (depending on the number of students) a powerpoint presentation on a topic of their choice among those treated in the course.
Course program
The first part of the class examines in a historical perspective the origins and the developments of ethnographic. fieldwork in the UK, USA, France and Italy. The different methodological approaches are analyzed in the frame of the different political and historical contexts in which the various schools were operating. A review will follow of the main techniques and problems of fieldwork: participant observation, the ethnographic interview, the different types of data, the interpretation and reliability of ethnographic observations; the ethics of anthopological research. Subsequently the instructor will present his own researches to show the relation between theory and practice in his work. The second part of the class is focussed on the contribution anthropology can offer to the analysis of present-day conflicts, starting from the notion of the 'continuum of genocide' which opens the way to an investigation of the forms of violence occurring in times of peace as well as those typical of armed conflicts. Among the topics to be discussed the (so-called) ethnic conflicts, terrorism, State terrorism, structural violence, war in its many contemporary forms, the proposals of non-violent thought and those of its critics. The order of the two sections may be inverted.