3410 6.0 Us & Them: Race, Ethnicity, Nation

Time:Wed 2:30-5:30 ACW 303

This course examines the concepts and practices of ethnicity and nationalism as bases of belonging and differentiation globally. Whether revealed in ethnocide/genocide or in multiculturalism and minority rights legislation, identity claims are deeply implicated in political changes including secession and violent conflict. Ethnic and ‘tribal” labels, once imposed in colonial contexts are now being remade in the contemporary world under pressures of citizenship, borders and im/migration, political upheavals and civil war, pop culture, tourism and environmentalism. Our analytical starting point for this course is that identities, ethnic and/or national, diasporic and/or cosmopolitan, are continually constructed and re/defined according to changing social conditions. We will explore how people negotiate identities in their daily lives, in their relationships and affiliations and how these are configured, mobilized or manipulated in local, national and international settings. Cases from the Balkans and former Soviet Republics, the Middle East, North America and Africa will be examined.

Course credit exclusion: AP/ANTH 3410 6.00 (prior to term Fall 2012).