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Root number
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490350 |
Semester
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HS2024 |
Type of course
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Exercise |
Allocation to subject
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Social Anthropology |
Type of exam
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Assignment |
Title |
BA/MA Sachbereichs-/Regionalübung: Critical indigeneities, extractive environments: Canadian perspectives |
Description |
If you sign in for the course you are automatically signed in for the exam!
This course will introduce students to concepts and questions related to indigeneity and the environment. We will focus both on academic texts and visual materials, mostly in the form of film.
Indigeneity is a contested concept and can be critically approached following several directions. In this course we will focus primarily on two considerations of the term: indigeneity as a legal and political category determining specific access and limitations to land, waters, and other elements; indigeneity as a way of being, knowing, caring for and relating to that is often threatened in times of growing extractive capitalism and worsening ecological crisis. In this sense, this course is precisely an invitation to explore the friction and the tensions between indigeneity and extraction/extractivism.
The course literature will draw from anthropology, critical indigenous studies and media, science and technology studies and environmental studies. Students will engage with literature and works by indigenous, métis and non-indigenous thinkers and artists such as Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Audra Simpson, Sky Hopinka, Max Liboiron, Lisa Stevenson, Kim TallBear, Macarena Gómez Barris, and Kathyrn Yusoff, among others. Shaped by the lecturer’s ongoing research on extractive industries, social ecologies, and settler-indigenous relationships in subarctic Québec, the course program proposes a specific focus on Canada, with some minor considerations of US examples. Students will thus be introduced to the specific context of the mining town of Schefferville and the adjacent Innu community of Matimekush – Lac John, located at the northern border between the provinces of Québec and Labrador. Departing from this site we will generate broader conversations in a shared space of learning and exchange.
Throughout the course, we will confront ourselves with a range of questions such as: What are the different definitions of indigeneity in its multiple forms and nuances? Why is it important to critically approach the concept, as well as our own positionality? In which ways does indigeneity relate to contemporary environmental debates, particularly regarding extractive environments? How do indigenous ways of knowing, thinking, caring, and relating invite a consideration of different frameworks to approach the ongoing environmental crisis, as well as human and more-than-human relationships? How does a focus on indigeneity and indigenous voices and knowledges imply a critical engagement with processes marked by extraction and extractivism, both regarding relationships to the environment and processes of knowledge production/making?
In parallel to in-class work the course will propose a dialogue with Arctic Voices, a series of events and film screenings that will take place in Bern in October 2024 (ww.arcticvoices.ch). Through an engagement with indigenous voices and stories from the Northern hemisphere, Arctic Voices will provide a larger frame in which to learn, exchange and discuss some of the course’s core themes. For this reason, students’ attendance at some events organized within the frame of Arctic Voices is strongly encouraged, and even mandatory in one or two cases throughout the semester. Exact dates and eventual time adjustments to the in-class sessions will be communicated in due time. |
ILIAS-Link (Learning resource for course)
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Registrations are transmitted from CTS to (no admission in ILIAS possible).
ILIAS
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Link to another web site
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Lecturers |
Andrea Bordoli, Institute of Social Anthropology ✉
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ECTS
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5 |
Recognition as optional course possible
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Yes |
Grading
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1 to 6 |
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Dates |
Thursday 26/9/2024 10:15-14:00
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Thursday 10/10/2024 10:15-14:00
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Thursday 17/10/2024 10:15-14:00
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Thursday 31/10/2024 10:15-14:00
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Thursday 14/11/2024 10:15-14:00
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Thursday 28/11/2024 10:15-14:00
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Thursday 12/12/2024 10:15-14:00
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Rooms |
Seminarraum 215, Hauptgebäude H4
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Students please consult the detailed view for complete information on dates, rooms and planned podcasts. |