2007 Handbooks

This unit introduces students to a vast field of anthropology dealing with nation, ethnicity, and identity. The fundamental, and strongly policy-relevant, question of this field is why individuals identify with a particular group, what such identification means, and why claims about it (for example, by national governments) carry authority. The course begins by examining how ideas about nation, ethnicity, and race were historically formed both in societies and in scholarship on societies. It then proceeds to deal with forms of ethnic identification that defy the idea of equating nation with territory; 'diasporas' -- groups that have left an historical homeland but continue to identify with it -- and transnational communities, whose belonging and social practice is defined by several nation-states rather than one. Finally, the course looks at how nation-states and non-territorial forms of belonging relate to each other, and what implications this has for citizenship in the contemporary world.