Weight: 30%
1000 words
Task Description:
You are required to choose an issue or context that relates to one of the themes
explored during this course. Using your own research, write a 1000-word
argumentative essay that weaves together information about this issue or
context with anthropological theory learned during the course. Your essay must
follow a standard essay structure – that is, introduction, body, and conclusion –
and must demonstrate correct referencing.
You may select an essay topic from the list below, or you may choose your
own (with the approval of the course coordinator):
1. Humans and their environments
1a. Anthropologists hold firm to the theory that humans are just as much
shaped by environments as environments are shaped by humans. Pick an
example of a recent or current context in which a group of people has
experienced massive environmental changes in a relatively short space of time
(e.g. deforestation, ice melt, toxicity, sea level rise, construction of dams or
mines, changes in wildlife numbers or behaviour, etc.), and explore the impact
that these changes have had on the culture/s of the people in question. Make
sure to use anthropological literature to research and answer this question, so
that you centre an anthropological perspective in your response.
1b. Anthropologists study people’s senses of belonging to place in a range
of different contexts. In World101x, we saw how strong feelings of belonging
factor into Indigenous connections with sites and landscapes, as well as
conflicts over coal seam gas prospecting and extraction. Find an example of
your own that centres people’s sense of belonging to a particular place, in the
context of conflict over land use. How do the notions of ‘belonging’ and
‘place’ factor into this context, and how are anthropologists involved in
mediating or exploring the conflict? What parts of the anthropological toolkit
are being used, or might be useful, in order to better understand this context?
2. Multiculturalism and nationalism
2a. Choose an example of a context, whether contemporary or historical, in
which multiculturalism has come into conflict with nationalism. How does
anthropology, as a particular discipline, weigh into analyses of this conflict in
particular, and these sorts of conflicts in general? How might anthropologists
1000 words
Task Description:
You are required to choose an issue or context that relates to one of the themes
explored during this course. Using your own research, write a 1000-word
argumentative essay that weaves together information about this issue or
context with anthropological theory learned during the course. Your essay must
follow a standard essay structure – that is, introduction, body, and conclusion –
and must demonstrate correct referencing.
You may select an essay topic from the list below, or you may choose your
own (with the approval of the course coordinator):
1. Humans and their environments
1a. Anthropologists hold firm to the theory that humans are just as much
shaped by environments as environments are shaped by humans. Pick an
example of a recent or current context in which a group of people has
experienced massive environmental changes in a relatively short space of time
(e.g. deforestation, ice melt, toxicity, sea level rise, construction of dams or
mines, changes in wildlife numbers or behaviour, etc.), and explore the impact
that these changes have had on the culture/s of the people in question. Make
sure to use anthropological literature to research and answer this question, so
that you centre an anthropological perspective in your response.
1b. Anthropologists study people’s senses of belonging to place in a range
of different contexts. In World101x, we saw how strong feelings of belonging
factor into Indigenous connections with sites and landscapes, as well as
conflicts over coal seam gas prospecting and extraction. Find an example of
your own that centres people’s sense of belonging to a particular place, in the
context of conflict over land use. How do the notions of ‘belonging’ and
‘place’ factor into this context, and how are anthropologists involved in
mediating or exploring the conflict? What parts of the anthropological toolkit
are being used, or might be useful, in order to better understand this context?
2. Multiculturalism and nationalism
2a. Choose an example of a context, whether contemporary or historical, in
which multiculturalism has come into conflict with nationalism. How does
anthropology, as a particular discipline, weigh into analyses of this conflict in
particular, and these sorts of conflicts in general? How might anthropologists
