Advocacy/Activism in the Academy
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Instructor: Edward Gonzalez-Tennant Classroom: Little Hall 117 Office: TUR 1350C |
Email: etennant@ufl.edu Class Time: MWF Period 7 Office Hours: Wednesdays 3-5pm |
Course Description:
Where do academics, educators, students, and other members of the scholarly elite fit into the complex landscape of social change? Do members of these groups have an ethical obligation to uncover perceived wrongs in the modern world? What is the nature of objectivity; and does it grant distance to parties interested in understanding how social wrongs are created and perpetuated? What is the difference between advocacy and activism? This course – where students and educators meet as socially-aware equals – is designed to look at these questions and critically examine the scholar’s role as advocate/activist.
The course is divided into three sections. The first third of the course centers on various theoretical foundations suggesting what transformative acts scholars are uniquely equipped to engage in. The second portion of the course will highlight the role of academics as educators in raising the public’s awareness of social wrongs. The final section is split between texts that demonstrate actions taken by scholars to address perceived wrongs; as well as time for each student to engage in their own forms of advocacy/activism. Throughout the course we'll follow three disciplinary trajectories providing a wide understanding of academic activism; these three strands are drawn from anthropology, history, and critical race theory.
Required Textbooks - available at Goerings Bookstore
Roy, Arundhati
2004 Public Power in the Age of Empire. New York, NY: Seven Stories Press.
Sanford, V., and A. Angel-Ajani
2006 Engaged Observer: Anthropology, Advocacy, and Activism. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press.
Downs, Jim and Jennifer Manion
2006 Taking Back the Academy: History of Activism, History as Activism. New York: Routledge.
Recommended Textbooks - choose one by Week 09 and read it by Week 12. We will discuss who is reading what during Week 09 class. In order to make sure everyone DOES NOT read the same book, do not purchase one until you've discussed reading it with the instructor. The books are all available online and you can probably get them used for pretty cheap.
Dow, Mark
2004 American Gulag: Inside U.S. Immigration Prisons. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press..
Lyon-Callo, Vincent
2004 Inequality, Poverty, and Neoliberal Governance: Activist Ethnography in the Homeless Sheltering Industry. UTP Press.
Striffler, Steve
2005 Chicken: The Dangerous Transformation of America’s Favorite Food. New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press.
Terms
Class participation is a must and students missing large amounts of class without an appropriate excuse (doctors appointment, family activity such as marriages or funerals, participation in other sanctioned school activity, etc.) will endanger their semester grade. Each class will be split between lectures by the instructor and class discussion of the readings. Since this course is interested in generating and implimenting real-world action, testing will not be a component of the course. The complete grading procedure is as follows:
Disability Accommodations:
Students requesting classroom accommodation must first register with the Dean of Students Office. The Dean of Students Office will provide documentation to the student who must then provide this documentation to the instructor when requesting accommodation.
Course Schedule: [subject to change]
Students will have 1-2 required readings per class. Recommended readings will never be required and students are not responsible for them, they are simply suggested as directional readings if students wish to follow a specific topic.
Week 01 – 'Truth' [Jan 6-9]
This week will focus on the situational nature of 'truth' and how many academics try to remain sensitive to this idea.
Monday - no class
Wednesday - pass out syllabus, disscuss first assignment, and talk about social theory
Friday - situational nature of truth and knowledge - Assignment 01
- Castle, Gregory, ed.
2007 The Blackwell Guide to Literary Theory. Blackwell Publishing: Malden, MA.
Download selected readings here.
- Sanford, Victoria
2006 "Introduction" and "Excavations of the Heart: Reflections on Truth, Memory, and Structures of Understanding" In Engaged Observer: Anthropology, Advocacy, and Activism. Edited by Victoria Sanford and Asale Angel-Ajani. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, pp. 1-41.
Recommended Readings for the Week:
Some definitions to help with the Literary Theory readings
- Haraway, Donna
1988 Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and
the Privilege of Partial Perspective. Feminist Studies, 14(3):575-599.
Assignment 01:
Title: Deconstructing American Propaganda
Choose one of the commercials below and deconstruct it as a form of US propaganda. This week's readings, particularly the scanned sections from The Bloackwell Guide to Literary Theory, will provide the tools of deconstruction, critical social theory, and other openly transformative academic techniques. Uses these methods to highlight how these videos are propaganda by talking about disjuncture, political rhetoric, and/or the evolution of facist states through popular culture.
Students will draw on the week's readings and submit a short critique of one of these videos . Paper length should be 2-5 pages, come prepared to discuss your ideas. Due Friday January 13th.
Videos (choose one from Choice 01 or Choice 02):
Choice 01: Citizen Soldier or Warrior
Choice 02: OLPC - "Zimi's Story"
Week 02 – Developing a theory of practice, pedagogy, and other issues [Jan 12-16]
This week will examine some recent theoretical foundations for academics getting involved in social change
Monday - some justifications for getting involved.
- Stavenhagen, Rodolfo
2004 "Human Rights and Wrongs: A Place for Anthropologists?" In Human Rights: The Scholar as Activist, edited by Carole Nagengast and Carlos G. Velez-Ivanez. Oklahoma City, OK: Society for Applied
Anthropology, pp. 21-41.
- Angel-Ajani, Asale
2006 "Expert Witness: Notes toward Revisiting the Politics of Listening." In Engaged Observer: Anthropology, Advocacy, and Activism, edited by Sanford, V., and A. Angel-Ajani. New Brunswick, N.J.:
Rutgers University Press. pp. 76-92.
Wednesday - what can we do in the age of empire?
- Roy, Arundhati
2004 Public Power in the Age of Empire. New York, NY: Seven Stories Press
Friday - engaged pedagogies
- Emihovich, Catherine
2005 Fire and Ice: Activist Ethnography in the Culture of Power. Anthropology and Education Quarterly 36 (4):305-314.
- hooks, bell
1994 Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge.
Chapter 1 – Engaged Pedagogy
- Eagan, Eileen
2004 "Teaching Student Activism" In Taking Back the Academy!: History of Activism, History as Activism. edited by Jim Downs and Jennifer Manion, pp11-24
Recommended:
- Downs, Jim
2004 "Teaching Across the Color Line: A Warning About Identity Politics in the Classroom." In Taking Back the Academy!: History of Activism, History as Activism." edited by Jim Downs and Jennifer Manion, pp177-186
Week 03 – Nonviolent Protest and the State [Jan19-23]
This week will look at pedagogical concerns of scholar-activists; particularly how academics institutionalize these ideals...
Monday - no class, MLK Jr. Holiday
Wednesday - How Nonviolence Protects the State
- Gelderloos, Peter
2007 How Nonviolence Protects the State. Cabridge, MA: Seven Stories Press.
Required: Chapters 1, 2, & 7
Recommended: Chapters 3 - 6
Friday - no class, students are encouraged to attend the Oral History Seminar at the SPOHP
Assignment 02:
Students should be developing a firm idea of what thier semester projects are going to focus on and entail. To this end, this week you will be asked to become familiar with the procedures of applying for Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval for your projects. Since each and every one of you will be asked to engage individuals face-to-face in some way, it is required you submit an IRB. Your finished IRB will be required the following week so that it can be turned in for a late-February approval. In other words you will have until Janury 30th to complete the IRB documentation. Don't worry, these things are short and we'll take time in class each day to disscuss them.
In order to assist with this process, please look at the following items:
UF IRB Required Reading - start here, read the Belmont Report, don't worry too much about the rest
UF IRB 2 Website - look around and familiarize yourself with this site as each of you will be completing an IRB-2.
- Plattner, Stuart (look at this article for an anthropological perspective/debate on IRB)
2003 Human Subjects Protection and Cultural Anthropology. Anthropological Quaerterly. 76(2):1-9.
Sample Protocol - from one of my own IRB's that received approval
Sample Informed Conset - from one of my own IRB's that received approval
Week 04 – Student Activists, Racism, Sexism, and their Intersections [Jan 26-30]
this week we will look at students working within the academy, feminist activisms, and privelege (mainly white and male)
Monday- landscapes of recent social movements, a global perspective
- nash, june. ed.
2007 social movements: an anthropological reader. Blackwell Publishing: Malden, MA
Introduction: Social Movements and Global Processes
- Klimke,Martin
2006 "Between Berlin and Berkeley, Frankfurt and San Francisco: The Student Movement of the 1960s in Transatlantic Perspective." In Taking Back the Academy!: History of Activism, History as Activism.edited by Jim Downs and Jennifer Manion, pp35-56.
Wednesday - student activists working within the university
- Phillips-Fein, Kimberly
2005 "What Is a University? Anti-Union Campaigns in Academia"
In Taking Back the Academy!: History of Activism, History as Activism.edited by Jim Downs and Jennifer Manion, pp69-84.
- Lemish, Jesse
2005 "2.5 Cheers for Bridging the Gap Between Activism and the Academy; or, Stay and Fight: To Which Is Added an Account of Radical Scholar-Activists in the Wake of the Iraq War."
In Taking Back the Academy!: History of Activism, History as Activism.edited by Jim Downs and Jennifer Manion, pp187-208.
Friday - Anarchst ethics for anthropology
- Graeber, David. 2004.
Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press.
Recommended Reading:
- Pels, Peter
2008 Ethics. In International Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, 2nd Edition, edited by William A. Darity Jr. pp. 632-633.
Assignment 02 Due
Week 05 – Theoretical Wrap-Up -Critical Race Theory & Ethics [Feb 2-6]
This week will introduce you to Critical Race Theory and then we'll discuss general ethics which draw heavily from anarchy
Monday - introdcution to privelege, which will inform next week's topics
- McIntosh, Peggy
1988 White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences Through Work in Women's Studies.
-Warren, Kay B.
2006 "Perils and Promises of Engaged Anthropology: Historical Transitions and Ethnographic Dilemmas" In Engaged Observer: Anthropology, Advocacy, and Activism. Edited by Sanford, V., and A. Angel-Ajani, pp213-227.
Wednesday - critical race theory and immigration (keep this in mind for next week), plus the 'site' of racism
- Johnson, Kevin R.
1998. Race, the Immigration Laws, and Domestic Race Relations: A "Magic Mirror" into the Heart of Darkness. Indiana Law Journal 73:1111-1159.
- Guthrie, Patricia, and Janis Hutchinson
1995 The Impact of Perceptions on Interpersonal Interactions in an African American/Asian American Housing Project. Journal of Black Studies 25 (3):377-395.
Friday - contributions of feminism to academic activism
- Cornell, Drucilla and Kitty Krupat
2005 "Forging Activist Alliances: Identity, Identification, and Position:"
In Taking Back the Academy!: History of Activism, History as Activism.edited by Jim Downs and Jennifer Manion, pp125-144
- Speed, Shannon
2006 "Indigenous Women and Gendered Resistance in the Wake of Acteal: A Feminist Activist Research Perspective" In Engaged Observer: Anthropology, Advocacy, and Activism. edited by Sanford, V., and A. Angel-Ajani, pp170-188.
Week 06 – Immigrant Issues [Feb 9-13]
Monday - Immigrant Issues 01
- Meeropol, Rachel, editor
2005 America’s Disappeared: Secret Imprisonment, Detainees, and the “War on Terror”. New York, NY: Seven Stories Press.
Introduction – by Rachel Meeropol
Chapter 7 – Looking for Hope: Life as an Immigration Detainee by Phillip Marcus
Chapter 9 – The Post 9/11 Terrorism Investigation and Immigration Detention by Rachel Meeropol
Wednesday - Immigrant Issues 02
- Smith, Paul J., editor (for thursday)
1997 Human Smuggling: Chinese Migrant Trafficking and the Challenge to America’s Immigration Tradition. Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Chapter 6 – Immigrant Smuggling through Central America and the Caribbean
Chapter 8 – Safe House or Hell House? Experiences of Newly Arrived Undocumented Chinese
Friday - rape as a tool of war/state power | rape and fieldwork
- Incite! Women of Color Against Violence.
2006 Color of Violence: the Incite! Anthology. Cambridge, Mass.: South End Press.
Chapter 14 – “National Security” and the Violation of Women: Militarized Border Rape at the US-Mexico Border
- Mahmood, Cynthia Keppley
2008 Anthropology from the Bones: A Memoir of Fieldwork, Survival, and Commitment. Anthropology and Humanism. 33(1-2):1-11.
Week 07 – Effects of Environmental Mismanagement - Queer Rights [Feb 16-20]
I'm not trying to force a connection between these two topics, they simply share a week.
Monday - legacies of the nuclear age
-
Johnston, Barabara, editor
2007 Half-Lives and Half-Truths: Confronting the Radioactive Legacies of the Cold War. Santa Fe, NM: School for Advanced Research Press.
Chapter 2 – “more like us than mice”: Radiation Experiments with Indigenous Peoples
Chapter 13 – Nuclear Legacies: Arrogance, Secrecy, Ignorance, Lies, Silence, Suffering, Action
Wednesday - GLBT: responding to the bible, intersex activism, and interrogating straight privilege
- Locke, Kenneth A.
2004 The Bible on Homosexuality: Exploring Its Meaning and Authority. Journal of Homosexuality. 48(2):125-156.
-
Corber, Rober and Stephen Valocchi
2003 Queer Studies: An Interdisciplinary Reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Chappter 2: Hermaphrodites with Attitude: Mapping the Emergence of Intersex Political Activism
- Earlham Students
ND Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack II:
Sexual Orientation. two pages.
Friday - When the State Attacks
- Bourgois, Philippe
2004 "US Inner-city Apartheid: The Contours of Structural and Interpersonal Violence". In Violence in War and Peace: An Anthology. edited by Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Philippe Bourgois, pp.301-307.
- Farmer, Paul
2004 "On Suffering and Structural Violence: A View from Below" In Violence in War and Peace: An Anthology. edited by Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Philippe Bourgois, pp.281-289.
Week 08 – Abuses of the Impoverished [Feb 23-27]
Monday - witnessing/writing violence
- Swedenburg, Ted
2004 "With Genet in the Palestinian Field."
In Violence in War and Peace: An Anthology. edited by Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Philippe Bourgois, pp.410-415
-
Binford, Leigh
2004 "An Alternative Anthropoplogy: Exercising the Preferential Option for the Poor" In Violence in War and Peace: An Anthology. edited by Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Philippe Bourgois, pp.420-424.
Wednesday - how globalization opens up new potentials for harm
- Inda, J. X., and R. Rosaldo
2002 The Anthropology of Globalization: A Reader. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers.
Chapter 12 – The Global Traffic in Human Organs
Friday - no readings, William D. Mercer (Student Legal Center) will speak on student's rights on and off campus
Week 09 – Violent Social Contexts [Mar 2-6]
Monday - violent social contexts
-
Sluka, Jeffrey A.
1999 Death Squad: The Anthropology of State Terror. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Introduction: State Terror and Anthropology
- Aretxaga, Begona
2004 "Dirty Protest: Symbolic Overdetermination and Gender in Northern Ireland Ethnic Violence." In Violence in War and Peace: An Anthology. edited by Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Philippe Bourgois, pp. 244-252.
Assignment 03: response paper to William D. Mercer guest lecture on student rights (2-3 pages)
Wednesday - working with refugees, part I
- Scheper-Hughes, Nancy
2004 "Who's the Killer? Popular Justice and Human Rights in a South African Squatter Camp."
In Violence in War and Peace: An Anthology. edited by Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Philippe Bourgois, pp.253-266.
Recommended:
- Thieman-Dino, Angela and James A. Schechter
2004 "Refugee Voices: The Missing Piece in Refugee Policies and Practices." In Human Rights: The Scholar as Activist. Edited by CaroleNagengast and Carlos G. Velez-Ivanez. Oklahoma City, OK: Society for Applied
Anthropology, pp. 65-88.
Friday - working with refugees, part II
- Collins, John
2006 "Moral Chronologies: Generation and Popular Memory in a Palestinian Refugee Camp." In Engaged Observer: Anthropology, Advocacy, and Activism. Edited by Victoria Sanford and A. Angel-Ajani. New Brunswick, N.J.:
Rutgers University Press, pp. 93-112.
- Skidmore, Monique
2006
"Scholarship, advocacy, and the politics of engagement in Burma." In Engaged Observer: Anthropology, Advocacy, and Activism. Edited by Victoria Sanford and A. Angel-Ajani. New Brunswick, N.J.:
Rutgers University Press, pp. 42-58.
Week 10 – No Class - Spring Break [Mar 9-13]
Week 11 – No Class - Instructor at Society for Applied Anthropology Meetings [Mar 16-20]
Week 12 – Ethnographies/Exposés [Mar 23-27]
Pick one of the following ethnographies and read it by Monday.
Monday:
- Dow, Mark
2004 American Gulag: Inside U.S. Immigration Prisons. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press..
Wednesday:
- Striffler, Steve
2005 Chicken: The Dangerous Transformation of America’s Favorite Food. New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press.
Friday:
- Lyon-Callo, Vincent
2004 Inequality, Poverty, and Neoliberal Governance:Activist Ethnography in the Homeless Sheltering Industry. UTP Press.
Assignment 03:
Turn in annotated bibliography.
Sample Bibliography
No Readings - each student will sign up for a time with the instructor to talk about their projects and upcoming presentations. This is your last chance to get one-on-one feedback before talking in front of the entire class, take advantage of it! (Plus, part of your proejct grade counts on it)
Week 14 - Student Presentations [Apr 6-10]
Student Project Reports - we'll decide the presentation order in Week 13.
Week 15 – Student Presentations [Apr 13-17]
Student Project Reports - we'll decide the presentation order in Week 13.
Week 16 - Student Presentations [Apr 20-22]
Student Project Reports - we'll decide the presentation order in Week 13.
Final projects (written version) due no later than April 22nd 2009.