ANT 101: Introduction to Sociocultural Anthropology
Fall 2005, M,W,F 9:30 — 10:20, Chambers 1027
Prof. Eriberto P. Lozada Jr. Office Hours: M, W, F 10:30 – 11:30 am
Office: Chambers B12 T, Th 10:00 – 11:15 am or by appointment
Telephone: 704-894-2035 Email: erlozada@davidson.edu
Web: http://www.davidson.edu/personal/erlozada
Lecture Notes, 14 Nov 2005
Societies are not the organic wholes with structures and laws that we thought them to be until
recently but fluid entities stretched on all sides by migrations, border-crossing and economic
forces; cultures are no longer bounded, discrete, and localized, but deterritorialized and subjected
to multiple hybridizations; similarly, nature can no longer be seen as an essential principle and
foundational category, an independent domain of intrinsic value and truth, but as the object of
constant reinventions, especially by unprecedented forms of technoscience; and, finally, nobody
really knows where the economy begins and ends, even if economists, in the midst of neo-liberal
frenzy and seemingly overpowering globalization, steadfastly adhere to their attempt to reduce to
it every aspect of social reality, thus extending the shadow that economics casts on life and
history. (Arturo Escobar 1997:499)
• people are on the move, as well as products; plans for economic development cannot be
made merely by what works best in the global arena (i.e., trade) nor what works best in
the domestic arena, but in the complicated intersection of the two
• cultures, societies are all mixed up; cannot separate a “formal” economic sector from the
“informal” (as developmental specialist did in the past); need to understand issue of
deterritorialization
• nature itself is a problem, not a given; connection between the well-being of a society and
the well being of its ecology; also, the numerous issues regarding ethical issues and
technology
• the problem of categorization (reduction is assignment to categories); the models that
don’t work because they are not only models of reality but models for reality, causing
shifts in the social reality that then mess up the model
Changes in economic development policy that lead to “sustainable development”
• “Experts began to accept that the poor themselves -- particularly the rural poor -- had to
participate actively in the programmes if these were to have a reasonable margin of
success”; including cultural elements and local voices in the design of development
projects
• Anthropological approaches to development shaped by post-structuralism: issue of
power in discourse:the discourse of development, the form in which it makes its
arguments and establishes its authority, the manner in which it constructs the world, are
usually seen as self-evident and unworthy of attention. The primary intention [of
discursive analysis] is to try and make the self-evident problematic’ (Crush, 1995, p. 3).
