AN670 Key Concepts in Anthropology I // AN673 Key Concepts in Anthropology II
These modules introduce major concepts in anthropology, demonstrating a range of theoretical and ethnographic approaches through which anthropologists study human cultures and societies. The goal is to help students understand, interpret and engage with real-world issues by equipping them conceptual and substantive knowledge and capacity to locate these varied approaches within anthropological traditions.
AN675A Theory in Anthropology
This module provides an advanced foundation to key social theories, especially from the European Enlightenment tradition but also up to the work of recent post-structural and postcolonial figures. Students will be challenged to grapple with different theories, comparing and contrasting theories before developing their own analysis.
AN676 Ethnographic Practice
Ethnography most commonly describes a core methodological tool in anthropology, but it is also an epistemological tool that anthropologists employ in positioning ourselves and others in the ‘field’ of research. In this module, we will explore changing attitudes to research methods in anthropology and use key examples to foreshadow preparations for student research proposals. We will examine some classic and contemporary ethnographic works while considering a range of methodological problems: entry to the ‘field’, data collection, inter-subjective dimensions of fieldwork experience. Moreover, students will be encouraged to think more broadly about new territories of ethnographic endeavour such as ethnography in corporate encounters, visual, digital and sensory ethnography and current approaches to gathering, producing and disseminating knowledge. Student participation and peer discussion will be expected in all sessions.
AN678 Graduate Seminar in Anthropology
These seminars are designed as space for postgraduate students (MA and Ph.D. students) to develop their research projects in discussion with visiting scholars and Anthropology Department academic staff. Weekly meetings will consist of: 1) seminars in which visiting scholars present their research; 2) discussions with visiting scholars about the relevance of their work to the students’ own research and to the current state of the field; 3) presentations and discussions of students’ work in progress under the guidance of Anthropology Department academic staff.
AN692 Anthropology and Development
This module provides the foundations for the study of Anthropology and Development by situating the long process of the making of the contemporary Global South at the intersection of world historical and political economic flows. We will begin with a close reading of key texts in the field of historical anthropology in order to trace the emergence of mass poverty, inequality and conflict in our world today. The latter part of the module introduces current anthropological perspectives on, and engagements with, issues of sustainable international development.
AN691 Linguistic Anthropology
This module offers an advanced introduction to Linguistic Anthropology, focusing on classic theory and its recent extensions. The module features: a concise introduction to linguistic form and structure; a survey of historical theories and methodologies for the study of language in use (interactional sociolinguistics, Conversation Analysis, the ethnography of speaking); the development of conceptual tools for the semiotic analysis of language and related cultural forms; analysis of language style, processes of social, gender and ethnic identification, and communities of practice; introduction to the anthropology of poetic speech, performance, and literary texts; methodologies for the study of social life of language from face-to-face interaction to the formation of large-scale publics; exploration of new cultural and linguistic forms emerging in electronically-mediated communication.
AN662G Ethnography Winter School
This module is a comprehensive introduction to ethnography. ‘Ethnography’ is more than a ‘method’: it comprises a whole style of thought encompassing forms of observation, analysis, and writing. The module therefore emphasizes analysis and theory in addition to the research practices (interviewing, participant observation, note-taking) conventionally associated with qualitative research methodology. Themes covered include: culture and difference, contexts and cases (working in NGOs, clinics, corporations), styles of representation and the politics of knowledge, research ethics and ethnographic engagement. The module is also structured as a workshop, so that ethnographers at various stages of their careers -- from students planning proposals, to dissertation writers analysing previously collected material, to research professionals who may not be based in academia -- will be able to produce work within the module that relates to their respective career stages, locations, and goals. This work, such as a proposal draft or a stretch of ethnographic writing, forms the basis for module assessment.
AN693 Anthropology of Digital Media
More and more of us are leading digital lives, but because the internet is a global phenomenon it can carry a series of assumptions regarding how it is used or who it is for. In this seminar we will consider digital media in diverse socio-political and cultural contexts to explore how individual, group and institutional interactions are increasingly mediated by these technologies. Are ideas and norms regarding human interaction changing? In Part One of this module we will focus on themes such as the presentation of self in online fora, ideas surrounding the internet and privacy, the encroachment of commercial interests in branding and advertising on digital media. In Part Two we will consider these topics through a close reading of ethnographic examples including Filipina migrants in the UK, hashtag activists in the United States, digital migration in urban China, display and disguise in mobile phone use amongst young Mozambicans and smartphone use among older adults in Ireland. Student and attendance and participation is required in all sessions.
AN695 Foundations of Medical Anthropology
This module offers an advanced introduction to the broad field of Medical Anthropology, focusing on the classical anthropological contributions to this important subfield with a focus on global health, health care systems, care more generally, and suffering. Students will explore ethnographic work on patient-physician relationships, the social and community contexts of care provision, and the impact of bio-medicine on Western and non-Western populations.
AN696 Privates and Counterprivates
Alongside the multiplication of publics and the tacit equation of (economic, moral) value with publicness (even, ‘publicity’), there have arrived new types of nonpublic, perhaps anti-public, social formation, but also the contrapuntal feeling that the domain of ‘the public good’ has been diminished by the intrusions of ‘private interest.’ Appearing in public, as (a) public, may exhibit our commitment to the constitutive role communicative reason plays in politics, but at the same time it may expose us to surveillance, by either state or corporate actors. Even as context collapse and the selfie seem to have made private life a relentless source of ‘social’ content, and therefore a rich vein of monetizable value, the digital citizen today frequently also conflates the right to privacy with the ever expanding expectation thereof. A quizzical mood of increasing distrust, even paranoia, accompanies higher incidence of that obsessional disorder we’ve all grown familiar with: ‘posting.’ Thus, we observe evolving tactics of disguise, camouflage, hiding, discretion, anonymity, and invisibility in a social ecology that seems to turn every device into an agent of the grid. That distrust indexes a constitutive irony to the apparently liberating, novel, and unique forms of subjectivity and sociality that (counter)publics create. If display/watching defines both the communicative context of politics and the transactional context of the market, in fact state and corporate power (or instead the neoliberal obviation of that distinction) pervade, or try to pervade, every public. Unwanted attention is a primary ‘digital risk,’ and privacy is thought to afford a source of protection. Paradoxically, insufficient attention is also a risk: what gets seen is controlled by forces not always visible. Thus, when reduced to ‘content,’ cultural discourse — indeed social life itself — is structured by the (proprietary) algorithms that determine what surfaces in our timelines and search results. And if algorithms are computer codes invisibly influencing what becomes public online, online circulation further presupposes vast unseen infrastructures linking the concrete and the esoteric: content is created and broadcast through enormously complex sociotechnical systems of information and circulation, state surveillance and citizen sousveillance, product design and prosumer impulse purchase, programmer skill and machine code. All of which makes it necessary to ask: what is happening in private? What even is 'the private’ or ‘privacy’ today? Might we see the private as something other than what is left in the shadows of our incessantly flashing ringlights?
Students can also avail of selected modules in the Departments of Geography, Media Studies, International Development, Sociology, and in the School of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures.
AN801 Theory and Practice for Anthropologists (Team-taught)
This course is built on the close reading of recent ethnographies, stressing theoretical, ethical and methodological issues, with practical focus on the craft of research in the discipline. The objective is to refine students' understanding of cutting edge anthropological theory and to assist students to operationalise their thesis proposal into ethnographic practice.
Assessment: participation + 5000-word equivalent continuous assessment
AN821 Professional Development in the Classroom and Beyond
This course is composed of 6 3-hour reflexive practice seminars over the year, or equivalent thereof, with an eye to developing the presentation and teaching skills of the student as an anthropologist. It may be taken concurrently with the Teaching and Learning Course and, if so, the student will gain a further 5 ECTS credit for their Generic/Transferable Requirement. The Deliverable is an undergraduate syllabus for a course in the students speciality.
Permission from Department must be sought before taking this module.
AN831 Directed Readings in Anthropology (Self-directed with mentor)
This module involves independent study facilitated by a staff mentor; the mentor may be the student's supervisor or it may be another member of the Anthropology staff. The role of the mentor is to provide specialist guidance in an area of disciplinary literature that the student wishes to explore. The module's objective is to provide a structured context in which an advanced postgraduate student can critically engage with areas of literature needed for the PhD thesis. It will enhance the student's preparedness for carrying out thesis research and/or writing the thesis. Students can only register for this module by prior arrangement with the mentor.
Prerequisites: Departmental permission only, arrangement with mentor
Assessment: A literature review essay of 5000 words
AN832-835 Research Tools in Anthropology (Self-directed with mentor)
Occasionally students pursue an anthropological research project that demands very specialised skills, from learning an exotic language to mastering advanced statistical methods. Students with such needs should discuss this with the Director of Postgraduate Studies to see if a specialised module can be designed for the student.
Prerequisites: Departmental permission only, arrangement with mentor
Assessment: 5000-word equivalent continuous assessment
AN841 Anthropology Writing-Up Seminar (Team-taught and cohort-led)
This module provides a rigorous but supportive environment for students to write up their thesis in a timely fashion. It is primarily self-directed, with staff supervision, by the cohort of students in the department who are currently in the process of writing. Seminar discussions will focus on the craft of ethnographic writing, especially focused on descriptively integrating primary data into an academic argument. Possible topics include learning writing through reading; ethnographic genres; audiences; ethnographic authority and issues of representation. Students will exchange draft chapters and read/critique one another's writing.
Prerequisites: Post-fieldwork and departmental permission
Assessment: 5000-word excerpt from the thesis-in-progress, marked by student's supervisor; engaged participation in critiquing the writing of others
AN842 Conference Participation (Self-directed with mentor)
This module involves independent study facilitated by a staff mentor; the mentor may be the student's supervisor or it may be another member of the Anthropology staff. The role of the mentor is to provide support as the student independently goes through the process of preparing to participate in a professional academic conference. The student's participation may range from presenting a paper to organizing a conference panel. The module's objective is to provide advanced postgraduate students with the experience of participating in a professional conference; it will advance their professional development by providing a structured context to facilitate the stages of the process.
Prerequisites: Departmental permission only, arrangement with mentor
Assessment: Text of conference paper and evidence of conference participation, or the panel abstract and preparatory notes for moderating the panel, along with a short essay reflecting on what the student learned from the experience
AN843 Writing for Peer-Reviewed Publication (Self-directed with mentor)
This module involves independent study facilitated by a staff mentor; the mentor may be the student's supervisor or it may be another member of the Anthropology staff. The role of the mentor is to facilitate the student's understanding of how academic publishing works, and to provide support as the student independently goes through the process of preparing a manuscript of an article for submission to a peer-reviewed academic journal. The module's objective is to provide advanced postgraduate students a structured understanding of academic publishing as well as the experience of preparing an article and submitting it to an academic journal for peer review. It will advance their professional development by providing a structured context to facilitate the stages of the process, from selecting a journal to drafting and submitting an article, through to receiving the reviewer feedback.
Prerequisites: Departmental permission only, arrangement with mentor
Assessment: Text of the article; evidence of submission to a peer-reviewed journal; short essay reflecting on what the student learned from the experience
AN862 Ethnography Winter School
Offered in January 2023
This module is a comprehensive introduction to ethnography. The course is delivered in a burst-format over several days, and features the collaborative teaching of practicing ethnographers, including both academics and professional researchers, on the island of Ireland. ‘Ethnography’ is more than a ‘method’: it comprises a whole style of thought encompassing forms of observation, analysis, and writing.
Prerequisites: BA 2.1 or permission based on other consideration (e.g. experience in the field)
Assessment: Negotiated portfolio of student's own work relevant to career stage
AN864 Fieldwork in Anthropology
This module is designed for students undertaking anthropological fieldwork abroad. Long-term fieldwork is central to the discipline of anthropology; it is expected that anthropology students at the PhD level will spend one year or more doing independent, original research at fieldsites remote from the student’s home institution. Fieldwork abroad requires extensive planning and preparation that can include learning a foreign language, cultivating fieldsite contacts, obtaining local research permissions, etc. Anthropological fieldwork is like an artisan craft in that it is learned through the process of engaging in it over the long term, and the pedagogical issues will be different for each student and for each fieldsite. Therefore, the content of this module is built around the student’s particular field project. In consultation with a designated departmental mentor, the student will: (i) Draw up a logistical plan for field research; (ii) Complete pre-field preparations, including making contacts at the fieldsite, securing permissions, etc.; (iii) Send written updates on progress to the mentor at least quarterly during the fieldwork; (iv) Present a preliminary summary of the data obtained upon return from the field.
| Student Name |
Thesis Title |
| Kevin Flanagan |
The City as a Commons |
| Chrissy Skelton |
Retired from Racing, Current Status Pet: Lifecourse of the Irish Greyhound
My thesis will examine the shifting boundaries of nature and culture in Ireland. Eduardo Kohn asserted all human societies recognise certain types of non-humans as “selves”. How is selfhood and non-human personhood attributed to Irish animals? We, as human animals, have additional rights that nonhuman animals, like dogs and dolphins, do not. Recently, the legal status of personhood has been awarded to nonhuman, natural entities (such as animals, trees, rivers). Widely covered in the popular media, an Indian court in 2013 declared dolphins “nonhuman persons”, prohibiting their captivity for entertainment. Taking an example of canines in Ireland, this thesis asks, how are we witnessing a change in contemporary human-animal relationships? Most Irish pet owners recognise their pet as a family member, indicating a personhood for such non-wild species. Not all dogs, however, are born equal. In Ireland, racing greyhounds are found shot, drowned, or beaten to death. In parallel to the moves to seek sanctuary for wild animals, there is a movement to grant animals, such as greyhounds, the right to retirement. There is a unique opportunity to generate the Irish contribution to this debate. I will explore the interconnected transformations of a greyhound’s utility and rights with changes in the humans’ home and routine. As they move from revenue-generator to retiree, I ask, how do their rights change with their shifting roles? I will track their journey from arrival at a rescue, through the rehoming process, and adjustment into, and within, their new home. My research will be a salient contribution to debates within the social sciences around what it means to be a person and a member of a family, and afford a timely, scholarly examination of a vital area of Irish culture through the facets of a greyhound’s many types of lives.
|
| Miriam Teehan |
From Cottage to Creche and Back: An Examination of Childcare Moral and Political Economy in Ireland, The Case Study of Au- Pairship
Ireland has changed in recent decades with increasing gender equality, women working outside the home, and the ongoing secularisation of society. However, these advanced are accompanied by a national shortage in access to adequate childcare services, and the exorbitant cost of childcare. This project seeks to address how people cope and, adapt in these situations. What strategies do families in Ireland take in order to survive? And how do they navigate, their economic circumstances and their childcare options with the values they uphold and cherish? By using the case of au pairs and host families in Ireland, my research will examine how au pairs and their employers are politically and socioeconomically situated. What do childcare choices (specifically the decision to employ au pairs) reveal about reshaping the most intimate relations of kinship, the family, and mothering? How are the boundaries and meanings of kinship being negotiated in an era where ‘care’ is something bought and paid for?
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| Stuart Lang |
The Agri-Cultural Imagination: Community Farming and the Future Imaginary
My research primarily focuses on urban agriculture, alternative farming practices, food sovereignty and future imaginaries. My fieldwork consisted of working on a community farm, immersing myself and taking part in the daily practices of the farmers and volunteers. Of particular interest to me is how and why people create alterity. Through thinking about the role of the imagination, the relationship between human and non-humans, the understandings of the near future, and the role language plays in all of it, I am exploring how a community of food growers think about the world they live in.
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| Bhargabi Das |
Songs of Life at the edges: How the State gets imagined in fluid ecologies (understood through examining flood-erosion and state making projects in riverine islands or Chars in Assam, India)
My research is focused on how the state gets imagined and experienced among people living in unstable, fluid ecologies called Chars in Assam, India. Chars are river islands and are constantly shifting, getting submerged during floods and re-emerge once floods recede. They are inhabited by mostly Bengali Muslims who have historically been marginalized by the mainstream Assamese society and State alike. A migratory population, their citizenship is also constantly questioned. The State does little in terms of providing basic governance of health and education in these areas but have started a massive citizenship project called the National Register of Citizens with the intention to strip such people of their citizenship rights. In such a political and environmental crisis, how people living there have experienced and imagined the state is what this project is focusing on.
This research will also address and is interested to explore issues of Nationalism, Citizenship, Bureaucracy, State and convergence of political-ecological crises.
|
| Rachel Phillips-Jackson |
Play to Win, More Than a Game for the Irish FGC: An Anthropological Exploration of a Digital Gaming Community in Ireland
My PhD research topic explores the entangled and mediated relationship between people and digital technologies through the lens of digital gaming in Ireland. My PhD research investigates how the practices and activities of an Irish gaming community known as the ‘Irish Fighting Game Community’ are mediated by and entangled with a host of digital technologies and how this relationship is expressed in creative, novel, and meaningful ways.
|
| Shirley Howe |
Of Land and Ocean: Culture and Climate on Ireland’s Islands [co-supervision with the Department of Geography, MU] |
| Tara McAssey |
Trash to Treasures: Transforming Values in a Dublin Flea-Market |
| Pranav Kohli |
Memory, Theodicy and Victimhood: The Afterlife of the Partition of India
Pranav’s research studies the emergence and popularity of Hindu nationalism in India through an ethnographic account of the 1947 Partition of India. The dissertation, entitled, “Memory, Theodicy and Victimhood: The Afterlife of the Partition of India,” answers an urgent, provocative but nevertheless necesssary question: “What does it mean to remember the Partition in the time of fascism?”
Pranav’s dissertation is based on fourteen months of ethnographic fieldwork with Partition survivors from west Punjab and the North-West Frontier Province, in Delhi and its surroundings. It included participant observation, unstructured life-history interviews and focus group discussions with this last generation of Partition survivors. This polyphonous retelling of the stories of the Partition foregrounds a number of symbolic patterns that occupy this dissertation such as violence, victimhood and theodicy.
This dissertation analyses how the hegemony of Hindu nationalism has structured the narratives of Hindu Partition survivors and recruited them in service of a putative Hindu nation. Using an interpretive approach, this dissertation analyses politics as culture. It examines how survivors use the ideology of Hindu nationalism to rationalise the Partition’s death and suffering. In doing so, the dissertation makes important connections between religious nationalism, modernity and the global rise of authoritarianism with the explicit objective of contributing to anti-fascist thinking. |
| Matjaz Pinter |
Transformations of Political Consciousness in Rural Nepal |
PAST DOCTORAL THESES
| 2021 |
Keith Murphy |
How Students with Dyslexia navigate their way through Third Level Education |
| 2020 |
Ciaran Walsh |
The Skull Measuring Business:
Some Murderous Little Facts from the Forgotten Spaces of Anthropology in Ireland |
| 2020 |
Nasrin Khandoker |
Songs of Deviance and Defiance: Subjectivity, Emotions and Authenticity in Bhawaiya Folk Songs of North Bengal |
| 2019 |
Frank Szabo |
Sex and Respectability in Ireland: A Chronology of Cultural Change |
| 2019 |
Ivo Syndicus |
Social Stratification, Cultural Identities, and Politics of Leadership: The Consolidation of a National Culture at a Papua New Guinean University |
| 2018 |
Amy Curran |
How Firm a Foundation: California Mormons Negotiating Inclusivity, Politics and Place |
| 2018 |
Mohammad Altaf Hossain |
Between Uncertainty and Hope: Disaster, Displacement and Livelihoods on Onishchit Charin Bangladesh |
| 2017 |
Veronica Cluxton Corley |
The Role of Autoethnography within Anthropology |
| 2016 |
Caitriona Coen |
Everyday Life, Debt and Death in North Dublin |
| 2016 |
Marion Mullin |
Scealta Dharach Ui Dhireain: A Linguistic and Anthropological Analysis |
| 2016 |
Threase Kessie |
Rise Up Dead Man and Fight Again’: Reviving and Defining Mumming in County Fermanagh |
| 2015 |
Felicia Garcia |
Coping and Suicide Amongst 'the Lads': Expectations of masculinity in post-traditional Ireland |
| 2014 |
Diana Gouveia |
Brazilian Return Migration: Debt, Freedom and Melancholia |
| 2014 |
Katja Seidel |
The Power of Absence: An Ethnography of Justice, Memories of Genocide and Political Activism of a New Generation in Post-Transitional Argentina |
| 2014 |
Tatiana Vagramenko |
Cross-cultural understanding between Protestant missionaries and Yamal Nenets indigenous Peoples |
| 2013 |
Carol Wrenn |
Changing Places, Creating Spaces: Santali Women in Local Level Politics in rural India |
| 2013 |
Maura Parazolli |
Three Miles Apart .. and Beyond: School Inequalities in Dublin 15 |
| 2013 |
Peter Lacey |
The ‘People’s Movement’: EU Critical Action & Irish Social Activism |
| 2013 |
Robert Power |
La Villa de las Tres Cuturas: A Study of a New Tourist Festival in Frigiliana, al Andalus |
| 2011 |
Carol Barron |
Fun is a Serious Business: “Sameness” and “Difference” in the Play Spaces, Play Activities and Toys of Irish Children in Middle School |
| 2011 |
Ciara Crawford |
Disease and Illness in Medieval Ireland |
| 2011 |
David Murphy |
Hate Couture: Subcultural Fundamentalism and the Serbian Black Metal Music Scene |
| 2011 |
Emma Heffernan |
Erotic Enterprises: An Ethnography and Opportunity for Female Sex Workers in Celtic Tiger Ireland |
| 2011 |
Francisco Arqueros Y Fernandez |
Workers Against Institutions: Power Relations and Political Economy in the Irish Mushroom Industry |
| 2009 |
Chiara Garattini |
Prisoners of Time: Infantile Funerary Practices in Ireland |
| 2009 |
Fiona Murphy |
Fixing the Shadows: Modern Modalities of Trauma, Memory and Reconciliation in Australia’s Stolen Generation |
| 2009 |
Joe Butler |
Sex, Race and Fieldwork: Locating a Figure in the History of Anthropology, Richard F. Burton, 1821-1890 |
| 2009 |
Michael Roberts |
Rebuilding after Mental Breakdown |
| 2008 |
Fiona Larkan |
Moralizing Cultures: Community, Risk and the Female Body in South Africa and Ireland |
| 2007 |
Keith Egan |
Mobility, Modernity and Community on the Camino de Santiago |
| 2007 |
Peter Mulholland |
Reiki and the Roman Catholic: An Anthropological Study of Changing Religious Forms in Ireland |
| 2005 |
James Quin |
Changing Sexual States: An Ethnography of Queers, Queering and Transition in Bratislava |
| 2005 |
Jerome Martin |
Irish Students and the Appropriation of Food Symbolic Properties |
| 2005 |
Mark Maguire |
The Other Side of the Hyphen: Vietnamese-Irish Identity |
| 2003 |
Cormac Sheehan |
Suicide and Self-Harming Behaviour in Dublin: Empirical Phenomena, Social Concomitants and Cultural Meanings |
| 2003 |
Michelle Cotter |
Heritage and Over-Representation in Yeats Country, County Sligo |
| 2001 |
Denise Meagher |
Academic Rights: An Anthropology of Contested Reproductions of Modern Irishness |
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