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Course module: 200300045
200300045
Culture, violence, trauma and death
Course info
Course code200300045
EC7.5
Course goals
  • Knowledge of the principal contemporary theoretical debates about violence, trauma, and death.
  • Interpreting contemporary social, ethnic, and political conflicts from an anthropological perspective.
  • Understanding political violence and social trauma as multidimensional processes instead of unicausal events.
  • Conducting a multi-level anthropological analysis.
  • The development of academic writing and research skills through one major research assignment
Content
Why do human beings suddenly turn on one another in violent ways, and what are the traumatic consequences of such violence? This interdisciplinary course explores violence, trauma, and death as manifested in genocide, ethnic cleansing, state terrorism, and counterinsurgency warfare. People have an innate need to belong to a social collectivity because only within a group they can reproduce society and acquire a cultural outlook that gives guidance and meaning to their lives. Paradoxically, some groups may seek to strengthen their cultural or political identity by the destruction of another group. The provocative ethnography The War Machines: Young Men and Violence in Sierra Leone and Liberia by Danny Hoffman argues that warfare is a mode of work through which young West African adults are exploited by elderly powerholders; in principle not different from their exploitation in diamond mines and rubber plantations. Based on fieldwork carried out under dangerous circumstances, Hoffman analyzes the patronage of war lords that maintains dependency relations with young combatants. How do people and societies cope with massive death, and what have been the social and political consequences of enforced disappearances on people’s ability to mourn their losses? The book Argentina Betrayed: Memory, Mourning, and Accountability by Antonius Robben analyzes the dynamics of trust and betrayal during the aftermath of Argentina’s ‘dirty war’ on the guerrilla insurgency and political opposition during the 1976-83 military dictatorship.  

Schedule:
For a week-by-week class schedule, please consult the course manual on Blackboard. Utrecht University has an official course commitment policy. This policy consists of::
1.     80% attendance in lectures (only a maximum of 20% absence is accepted, irrespective of the reasons).
2.     Handing in papers and assignments on time (overdue papers are downgraded with a one point per day penalty); and
3.     Obligatory participation at written tests and exams.
There exists no collective possibility for retaking failed exams or resubmit rewritten papers. Only students who have complied with all commitment policy requirements will be given one additional chance to retake the exam and/or submit a rewritten paper within six weeks after the course ended. Re-examination and resubmission are not a right of students but a privilege given by the course coordinator on a case-to-case basis, and therefore require his permission.

Assumed knowledge:
First year BA courses in the field of Social Sciences

Students are assessed in three ways:
1.      A written, closed-book exam that assesses the knowledge and understanding of lectures and required literature about the anthropology of violence, trauma, and death (aims a, b, and c).
2.      A research paper that assesses the ability of students to interpret, research, and write about conflicts from a multi-level anthropological perspective (aims b, d, and e)
3.      Oral presentation skills and the ability to lead a group discussion,  including a written summary of the introduction, class discussion, and overall conclusions of one chaired section meeting (aims a and b)
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 Kies de Nederlandse taal