Time Schedule:
Nicole I Torres
ANTH 423
Seattle Campus
Focuses on the movement of cultural patterns and processes across boundaries, examining the "contact zones" in colonial encounters, moving to borrowing and blendings along ethnic and national borders. Examines border crossing of immigration and diasporas. Ethnographic examples from the Americas and Africa. Prerequisite: one 200-level ANTH course.
Class description
Borders, Boundaries, and Borderlands in the United States: From the location of prisons to the demarcation of the U.S. border, borders and boundaries can be perceived as “cultural artifacts” that help to generate social meaning. In this course we examine the concepts of “borders” and “boundaries “ and why these ideas are of particular significance, both in everyday social practice as well as in the geopolitical realm. Drawing from numerous theorists (Harvey, Rose, Gilroy, among others) we will critically examine the notion of whether a border or a boundary simply happens “out there,” or instead may be experienced internally and become deeply rooted social and cultural practices. In this course, we will examine how social relationships are connected to material surroundings and how, as a result, borders may be produced.
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