Ethnicity is one of the most compelling and most modern ways in which people - in the midst of considerable global and local uncertainty - all across the world imagine and narrate themselves. This seminar will take an anthropological look at both the modernity and the compulsions of ethnic allegiance, and, why struggles over ethnic identity are so frequently violent. Our questions will be both historical; how, why and when did people come to think of themselves as possessing different ethnic identities - and contemporary; how are these identities lived, understood, narrated, and transformed and what is the consequence of such ethnicisation. We follow this through anthropological perspectives which ask persistently how people themselves locally narrate and act upon their experiences and histories. Through this we will approach some of the really big and yet everyday questions that many of us around the world face: how do we relate to ourselves and to those we define as others; and how do we live through and after profound violence? The seminar will take these larger questions through a global perspective focusing on cases from Rwanda and Burundi, India, Sri Lanka, Northern Ireland, Guatemala, and the countries of Former Yugoslavia among others. These cases cover a broad canvas of issues from questions of historicity, racial purity, cultural holism, and relations to the state, to contests over religious community, indigeneity, minority identities, globalization, gender, and generation.
3 units · Letter (ABCD/NP)
Ethnicity is one of the most compelling and most modern ways in which people - in the midst of considerable global and local uncertainty - all across the world imagine and narrate themselves. This seminar will take an anthropological look at both the modernity and the compulsions of ethnic allegiance, and, why struggles over ethnic identity are so frequently violent. Our questions will be both historical; how, why and when did people come to think of themselves as possessing different ethnic identities - and contemporary; how are these identities lived, understood, narrated, and transformed and what is the consequence of such ethnicisation. We follow this through anthropological perspectives which ask persistently how people themselves locally narrate and act upon their experiences and histories. Through this we will approach some of the really big and yet everyday questions that many of us around the world face: how do we relate to ourselves and to those we define as others; and how do we live through and after profound violence? The seminar will take these larger questions through a global perspective focusing on cases from Rwanda and Burundi, India, Sri Lanka, Northern Ireland, Guatemala, and the countries of Former Yugoslavia among others. These cases cover a broad canvas of issues from questions of historicity, racial purity, cultural holism, and relations to the state, to contests over religious community, indigeneity, minority identities, globalization, gender, and generation.
Offered in Autumn 2025 at Stanford University.