Power and powerlessness of humans: anthropology of cultural change and social engineering
This seminar offers an anthropological perspective on cultural change and the agency of humans on their social worlds. As the planet literally burns, the question of change, and thus of the agency of humans on their social worlds, has become unavoidable. By exploring the differences between human cultures, anthropology offers the possibility of looking at ourselves from a distance: it enables us to observe ourselves and consider our problems from the point of view of others.
After an introductory session, the seminar will be organized around three themes: power, change and limits. The first will explore various forms of power, authority and command in human social organizations, from the almighty power of the gods to chief without power. The second will be devoted to a series of case studies of voluntarist social change: state-building, religious conversion, modernization, development and so on. The third will focus on the the limits and resistances of our capacity to transform our social world according to our will. The final session will be devoted to the anthropology of climate change.
Each session will focus on a question on which the seminar will propose a change of perspective based on empirical cases drawn from societies around the world. A collective discussion at the start of the seminar, based on a short text, will introduce the ethnographic (empirical) data.
- Teaching coordinator: Moya Ismaël