Ethnology [LPHIB212]

Learning outcomes

• Discern ethnology - or cultural and social anthropology - as a specific field in the human sciences (in terms of its objects, approaches, methods, practices and issues) • Understand its differences and links with other disciplines in philosophy and the humanities (sociology, history, law, criminology, psychology, economics, archaeology, art history, etc.) • To situate oneself in relation to some fundamental fields and problems studied in ethnology (exiles and migrations; illness and health; person and kinship; symbolic systems and religions; nature and culture; etc.) • To appropriate the ethnological concepts and theories necessary for the formulation of these issues • Conceive the links between the themes studied and some of their counterparts in the student's field of study Crosscurricular competences • Adopt an epistemological and critical view of the issues addressed (by identifying their modes of elaboration, their scope and their limits) • Situate the study issues (in this case ethnological) in their historical, social, cultural and political context. • To measure the importance of the dialogue between the humanities, its relevance, its usefulness and some of its privileged paths (here between ethnology, the student's discipline of study, and the other humanities to which he or she has been introduced) • Become familiar with in-depth reading of ethnological texts • Produce a work of personal appropriation, questioning and reflection on issues dealt with by ethnology and concerning the student as a human being, as a student and as a citizen

Objectives

• To introduce and sensitise to ethnological thinking and approaches that study, and become immersed in, the world of other socio-cultures - even if they are in our midst - and, comparatively, our own. • To enable students to situate themselves in relation to ethnology and its methods, from their own discipline of study, likely to make interdisciplinary use of it.

Content

• The course begins with an introduction to the teacher, the subject, the course outline, the method and the exam. • He then turns to a methodological discussion: ethnographic fieldwork (fieldwork and participant observation) and ethnographic description (description, interpretation and writing). • Several major fields are then successively addressed: the anthropology of exile and migration, the anthropology of symbolic systems and religions, the anthropology of the person and kinship, the anthropology of violence, the anthropology of gift and exchange, the anthropology of virtual worlds, the anthropology of nature, environment and material culture, the anthropology of health and healing.