Communications and course delivery

ANTH7900 will be offered in both synchronous and asynchronous formats. We will hold weekly class meetings in the Monday morning slot, but I also encourage ongoing discussions and exchanges outside of course time with the whole class or among students. I am available to discuss questions or concerns via email, WhatsApp, Zoom, Skype, or WebEx outside of class time. I will not be holding formal office hours, but am available on request.

Course description and purpose

ANTH7900 The social economy of dried fish in South and Southeast Asia is a special topics course designed for graduate students to explore the rich terrain and potential of the SSHRC-sponsored Partnership Grant project Dried Fish Matters: Mapping the Social Economy of Dried fish in South and Southeast Asia for Enhanced Wellbeing and Nutrition Security. As the course falls within the anthropology program at the University of Manitoba, it will emphasize the anthropological elements of DFM. In particular, it focuses on the central theoretical concept of dried fish matters, social economy, which we will explore from an economic anthropology perspective. In keeping with the geographical orientation of the DFM project, the course will anchor itself in the application of social economy ideas to the dried fish economy of South and Southeast Asia.

The purpose of the course is provide participating students the opportunity to gain a thorough understanding of the project’s conceptualization, and familiarity with related substantive and methodological literature, while also giving them space to begin to develop their own areas of interest and expertise within the broad framing of the project. Students will be expected to orient their explorations with reference to anthropological perspectives and references.

ANTH7900 is formally a reading course but I will run it as a blend of a reading course and a more traditional graduate seminar. The distinction between these is on the degree to which the course is self-led and the frequency of meetings. Typically, a reading course has high emphasis on the student defining their readings list in consultation with the instructor and typically a reading course has relatively few meetings. In this offering of ANTH7900, we will meet regularly and I am providing a foundational reference list but we I will work with each of you individually, and with all of you as a group, to determine a shared core reading list and individual additional independent reading lists.

Objectives

By the end of the course, students should have achieved the following course objectives:

1. Conceptual objectives

· Thorough understanding of DFM conceptually and institutionally

· understand key ideas and key points of entry for the major areas of theory and method that have informed DFM

· particularly, through the idea of social economy, students should have a good understanding of anthropological perspectives on economy, wellbeing, nutrition, development, and governance, among key DFM areas of interest related to dried fish

2. Methodological objectives

· good understanding of how to use Zotero to support the writing of their literature reviews

· basic familiarity with the use of NVIVO to analyze qualitative data

· how their emerging research focus fits within the broader DFM project and can contribute to DFM

i. specifically, students should have good background for developing their focus research area, their research questions, and the beginnings of their graduate research proposals

3. Cohort building objective

· students should have a clear idea of how their planned research meshes with that of the other students in ANTH7900