Anthropology

And most of all beware, even in thought, of assuming the sterile attitude of the spectator, for life is not a spectacle, a sea of grief is not a proscenium, a man who wails is not a dancing bear . . .
–Aimé Césaire

How do we turn our collective full-bodied intelligence towards collaboration, if that is the way we will survive?
–adrienne maree brown

The State is a condition, a certain relationship between human beings, a mode of behavior; we destroy it by contracting other relationships, by behaving differently toward one another....
–Gustav Landauer


There are no dangerous thoughts–thinking itself is dangerous.
–Hannah Arendt

I do think that if I had to choose one word to which hope can be tied, it is hospitality… practice of hospitality recovering threshold, table, patience, listening, and from there generating seedbeds for virtue and friendship on the one hand. On the other hand, radiating out for possible community, for rebirth of community.
–Ivan Illicch

A problem calls for a solution; the only question is whether one can be found and made to work, and once this is done, the problem is solved. A predicament, by contrast, has no solution. Faced with a predicament, people come up with responses. Those responses may succeed, they may fail, or they may fall somewhere in between, but none of them ‘solves’ the predicament, in the sense that none of them makes it go away.
– John Michael Greer

This course will introduce students to the field of environmental anthropology which focuses on the interrelationship between human cultures and natural environments. In particular we will attend to the challenge of anthropological confrontations with the climate crisis related cascading crises, including inequality and white supremacy. Environmental anthropology studies the various ways in which our biological survival and our social structures are influenced by environmental factors around us, while at the same time analyzing how our actions shape these environmental factors in turn. We will look towards anthropology (and related disciplines) for intellectual, imaginative and action-oriented resources for addressing what may be the most critical issue of our time—climate change–and how it intersects with inequality and intensifying authoritarianism. We will approach these issues through experiential methods and collaborative work.
Broadly there are three segments to this course--the self, ecologies, and collaborations (though not in a linear way). Underlying each of them is a search for ways to live differently with and resist authoritarianism, racial capitalism, and the intensifying climate crisis. While these topics may not always be explicitly present in our readings, they are built into the architecture of the course and should be kept in mind throughout it.

I take seriously the notion that our time together is valuable, that we are in an urgent situation that in many ways the institutions we inhabit (Haverford included) have yet to awaken to our predicament. I also believe that anthropological thinking offers some possibilities for imagining and enacting alternatives. From studies of environmental racism and environmental justice, to indigenous movements and speculative design tools, the anthropological approach is often improvisational, lending itself to experiences that allow for novel juxtapositions, and listening to essential quieter voices that often go unnoticed, viewing the world in imaginative ways, and offering possibilities for new configurations. We engage all of our senses and collaborative capacities in this course. Please come ready to experiment...