Students
ANTH303 – Anthropology of the City
2014 – S2 Day
General Information
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| Unit convenor and teaching staff |
Unit convenor and teaching staff
Unit Convenor
Jakob Timmer
Contact via jaap.timmer@mq.edu.au
W6A, Room 603
Thursdays 2-4pm
Tutor
Mariske Westendorp
Contact via mariske.westendorp@mq.edu.au
W6A, Department of Anthropology (6th floor)
Wednesdays, 2:30pm - 4pm
Payel Ray
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| Credit points |
Credit points
3
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| Prerequisites |
Prerequisites
39cp or admission to GDipArts
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| Corequisites |
Corequisites
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| Co-badged status |
Co-badged status
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| Unit description |
Unit description
How might we think about the relationships between the built environment, culture, and individual or collective identity? What makes a city socialist, Islamic or modern? What impact do these varied forms of urban organisation and architecture have on the inhabitants that dwell in them? This unit introduces students to the anthropology of the city through focusing on the organisation of space and the politics of architectural forms and urban planning. It explores how space and its design are intimately connected to particular modernist projects such as nationalism, colonialism, socialism and apartheid. Students consider a variety of anthropological perspectives that seek to explain the amazing diversity and surprising similarity of urban cultures and their spatial forms, as well as ways that the built environment might both express and generate culture, power and individual or collective identities.
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Important Academic Dates
Information about important academic dates including deadlines for withdrawing from units are available at https://www.mq.edu.au/study/calendar-of-dates
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- Account for the diversity of urban environments
- Identify relations between built form, culture, and individuals’ experiences of space
- Analyse how architectural forms, modernist urban planning and people’s use of space are articulated with particular political projects of nation-building, colonialism, socialism etc.
- Apply the concerns of various anthropological writings to contemporary processes of spatial design and groups or individuals’ use of space
Assessment Tasks
| Name | Weighting | Due |
|---|---|---|
| Minor Essay | 15% | 29 August 2014 |
| Major Essay | 40% | 3 November 2014 |
| Media-Watch Journal | 25% | 27 October 2014 |
| Tutorial | 20% | n/a |
Minor Essay
Due: 29 August 2014
Weighting: 15%
Using the materials covered in the first three weeks of lectures and tutorials, write a short commentary on the organization of space in the Cathedral.
Preliminary references include the tutorial and secondary readings
On successful completion you will be able to:
- Account for the diversity of urban environments
- Analyse how architectural forms, modernist urban planning and people’s use of space are articulated with particular political projects of nation-building, colonialism, socialism etc.
- Apply the concerns of various anthropological writings to contemporary processes of spatial design and groups or individuals’ use of space
Major Essay
Due: 3 November 2014
Weighting: 40%
1. Using Low’s distinction between the social production and social construction of space, discuss either indigenous urbanity in Australia or urbanization in Africa.
2. Compare and contrast ecological, cultural and social production perspectives on the built environment.
3. Discuss the similarities and differences between any two forms of modernist city i.e. apartheid, colonial, Islamic, socialist, nationalist, settler colonialist etc, concentrating on connections between their built environments, politics, culture, and inhabitants’ urban experience and identity. You are encouraged to use case studies of specific cities.
4. “One of the social effects of modernist master planning is the depoliticization of those who are not planners, since their political organization becomes irrelevant if not obstructive in decisions about urban development” (Holston). Discuss in relation to any two forms of modernist city.
5.Write your own question that incorporates the main themes of the course and readings (please draft your question and meet with me for discussion before proceeding).
On successful completion you will be able to:
- Account for the diversity of urban environments
- Analyse how architectural forms, modernist urban planning and people’s use of space are articulated with particular political projects of nation-building, colonialism, socialism etc.
Media-Watch Journal
Due: 27 October 2014
Weighting: 25%
In groups of two, students will engage in a small-scale media-watch journal over the course of the semester. Each pair of students will make a ‘media journal’ (preferably hardcopy) that collates material to do with the organization of the built environment, from design and security, health, sustainability and the environment (i.e. the sick building syndrome), interior design, ethnicity and the city, architecture and urban planning issues, monuments and urban landscapes, the use of space, strategies of place-making, urbicide, landscapes of clearances, conservation struggles, heritage processes, consumption, housing and property, spatial intervention etc.
One key aspect of this media watch project is to select the categories under which you will archive material. Use no more than 5 headings.
Final submission of the journal/portfolio involves two tasks:
· A brief introduction, explaining and justifying the categories you have selected to organize the material.
· A longer critical comment on the prevailing assumptions that inform or dominate the media reporting of the material in each of your different archives. You may choose to write your critical analysis on your materials at the end of each individual archive. Alternatively you might do it to conclude your media-watch journal, tying them all together in some way.
Referencing: you do not have to cite authors outside the media-watch material. If you do want do however, make a short reference list. As for the archive authors, just use their names in your commentary.
Length: no more than 1500 words, and no more than 30 articles.
Media-watch journals should be submitted at the lecture in Week 11. At the lecture student groups will exchange their portfolio with one other group, to be returned the following week at the lecture (Week 12) for collection by the course convenors. Students are expected to write a short half-page report on each other’s work.
On successful completion you will be able to:
- Identify relations between built form, culture, and individuals’ experiences of space
- Apply the concerns of various anthropological writings to contemporary processes of spatial design and groups or individuals’ use of space
Tutorial
Due: n/a
Weighting: 20%
Tutorial preparation involves a couple of hours of pleasurable (!) reading each week. To facilitate tutorial discussion, you are required to submit a one-page typed answer to the tutorial question for that week (see lecture and tutorial programme). Secondly, you are required to write one succinct sentence capturing the reading’s overall theme. Answers can only be submitted at the tutorial in which the reading is to be discussed. The tutorial mark will be awarded both on the basis of the written work, as well as on tutorial participation.
On successful completion you will be able to:
- Account for the diversity of urban environments
- Identify relations between built form, culture, and individuals’ experiences of space
- Analyse how architectural forms, modernist urban planning and people’s use of space are articulated with particular political projects of nation-building, colonialism, socialism etc.
- Apply the concerns of various anthropological writings to contemporary processes of spatial design and groups or individuals’ use of space
Delivery and Resources
ANTH303 involves a two-hour meeting starting at 10am and finishing at 12pm on Wednesday, in E6A 133. This weekly meeting will be used for lectures or for films. Students are also required to attend one of two weekly tutorials, the first scheduled in C4A 320 at 12pm, the second in E7B 263 at 1pm on Wednesday after the lecture.
All readings for tutorials are found in the course reader, which should be purchased from the bookshop. All other listed readings are on three-day loan (books) or e-reserve (journal articles).
All lecture PowerPoint Slides will be posted on iLEARN
Tuesday Lecture: Each week, the course convener will use the two hours of the Tuesday meeting to sketch out and address the key issues under discussion and to situate the tutorial readings. The class will also view and interpret a number of significant films.
Tutorial: Tutorial readings are intimately connected to the topics under discussion in the two-hour lecture session. Sometimes the tutorial material approaches the issues explored in the lecture from a contrary direction; sometimes it places those issues in a different context or summarises key themes. Students are expected to attend all tutorials and to be familiar with the assigned material, as well as participate in small group discussion or larger tutorial activities (see below).
Unit Schedule
Part One: Built Form, Culture, Subjectivity
Week One: Relations between Built Form, Culture and Experience/Consciousness
1. The Tower of Babel: Introduction to Selected Dimensions of the Built Environment
2. Built Form, Culture, Subjectivity
Week Two: Anthropological Approaches to Urban Form & Built Environment (1)
1. Ecological & Social Organization Approaches
2. Symbolic or Semiotic Approaches
Week Three: Anthropological Approaches to Urban Form & Built Environment (2)
1. Social Production Approaches
2. Film: The Architecture of Mud
Week Four: Excursion to St Mary’s Cathedral
Meet at 1.40pm, inside the Cathedral, outside the Bookshop for the guided tour.
No Tutorial this week.
Part Two: Historical Background to Urban Anthropology
Week Five: Representing the Heart of Darkness: Imperial Urban Ethnography at Home and Abroad
1. Urban Ethnographic Representation at Home: Karl Marx, Charles Dickens and Metropolitan Urban Ethnography.
2. Urban Ethnographic Representation Abroad: International Fairs, Native Villages, Picture Postcards and Photograph
Week Six: Urban Anthropology and Case Study 1: Dependent Colonialism and Urbanization in Africa
1. Anthropology of the Urban: Anthropology’s Missing Link?
2. Settler & Dependent Colonialisms: Introduction to World Systems Theory in the African Context
Film: Songs of the Adventurers
Part Three: Urban Modernities, Imagined Communities
Week Seven: The Colonial City as Exemplar of Modernist Cities
1. Modernity & Planning
2. The Colonial City: Laboratories of Modernity
Term break
Week Eight: Anti-Colonialism and the Struggle for Urban Space
1. Space and Resistance
2. Film: Battle of Algiers
Week Nine: Post-Colonialism and the Nationalist City: Monumentalism and Identity
1. Nationalism and Identity
2. Nationalism and Urban Form
Part Four: Exit State Developmentalism, Enter Neoliberal Globalisation?
Week Ten: Istanbul: History, Experience and Politics of Place (1)
1. Republican Turkey
2. Film: Crossing the Bridge
Week Eleven: Istanbul: History, Experience and Politics of Place (2)
1. Islamist Place-Making and the Struggle for Public Space
2. Film: Ekumenopolis
Week Twelve: The End of Modernism & National Developmentalism?
1. Global [Dis]-Connections
2. Imagining the City: Metaphors and Images
Week Thirteen: Course Overview and Last Thoughts
1. Reckoning with Architecture, the City, Place and Identity.
There is no tutorial scheduled for this week, but students are encouraged to look at:
Dovey, K. (1999) ‘Liberty and Complicity’ (Chapter 13) in Framing Places: Mediating Power in Built Form.
Policies and Procedures
Macquarie University policies and procedures are accessible from Policy Central. Students should be aware of the following policies in particular with regard to Learning and Teaching:
Academic Honesty Policy http://mq.edu.au/policy/docs/academic_honesty/policy.html
Assessment Policy http://mq.edu.au/policy/docs/assessment/policy.html
Grading Policy http://mq.edu.au/policy/docs/grading/policy.html
Grade Appeal Policy http://mq.edu.au/policy/docs/gradeappeal/policy.html
Grievance Management Policy http://mq.edu.au/policy/docs/grievance_management/policy.html
Disruption to Studies Policy http://www.mq.edu.au/policy/docs/disruption_studies/policy.html The Disruption to Studies Policy is effective from March 3 2014 and replaces the Special Consideration Policy.
In addition, a number of other policies can be found in the Learning and Teaching Category of Policy Central.
Student Code of Conduct
Macquarie University students have a responsibility to be familiar with the Student Code of Conduct: https://students.mq.edu.au/support/student_conduct/
Student Support
Macquarie University provides a range of support services for students. For details, visit http://students.mq.edu.au/support/
Learning Skills
Learning Skills (mq.edu.au/learningskills) provides academic writing resources and study strategies to improve your marks and take control of your study.
Student Services and Support
Students with a disability are encouraged to contact the Disability Service who can provide appropriate help with any issues that arise during their studies.
Student Enquiries
For all student enquiries, visit Student Connect at ask.mq.edu.au
IT Help
For help with University computer systems and technology, visit http://informatics.mq.edu.au/help/.
When using the University's IT, you must adhere to the Acceptable Use Policy. The policy applies to all who connect to the MQ network including students.
Graduate Capabilities
Capable of Professional and Personal Judgement and Initiative
We want our graduates to have emotional intelligence and sound interpersonal skills and to demonstrate discernment and common sense in their professional and personal judgement. They will exercise initiative as needed. They will be capable of risk assessment, and be able to handle ambiguity and complexity, enabling them to be adaptable in diverse and changing environments.
This graduate capability is supported by:
Learning outcome
- Identify relations between built form, culture, and individuals’ experiences of space
Assessment tasks
- Media-Watch Journal
- Tutorial
Commitment to Continuous Learning
Our graduates will have enquiring minds and a literate curiosity which will lead them to pursue knowledge for its own sake. They will continue to pursue learning in their careers and as they participate in the world. They will be capable of reflecting on their experiences and relationships with others and the environment, learning from them, and growing - personally, professionally and socially.
This graduate capability is supported by:
Learning outcomes
- Analyse how architectural forms, modernist urban planning and people’s use of space are articulated with particular political projects of nation-building, colonialism, socialism etc.
- Apply the concerns of various anthropological writings to contemporary processes of spatial design and groups or individuals’ use of space
Assessment tasks
- Minor Essay
- Major Essay
- Media-Watch Journal
- Tutorial
Discipline Specific Knowledge and Skills
Our graduates will take with them the intellectual development, depth and breadth of knowledge, scholarly understanding, and specific subject content in their chosen fields to make them competent and confident in their subject or profession. They will be able to demonstrate, where relevant, professional technical competence and meet professional standards. They will be able to articulate the structure of knowledge of their discipline, be able to adapt discipline-specific knowledge to novel situations, and be able to contribute from their discipline to inter-disciplinary solutions to problems.
This graduate capability is supported by:
Learning outcome
- Account for the diversity of urban environments
Assessment tasks
- Minor Essay
- Major Essay
- Tutorial
Critical, Analytical and Integrative Thinking
We want our graduates to be capable of reasoning, questioning and analysing, and to integrate and synthesise learning and knowledge from a range of sources and environments; to be able to critique constraints, assumptions and limitations; to be able to think independently and systemically in relation to scholarly activity, in the workplace, and in the world. We want them to have a level of scientific and information technology literacy.
This graduate capability is supported by:
Learning outcomes
- Account for the diversity of urban environments
- Identify relations between built form, culture, and individuals’ experiences of space
- Analyse how architectural forms, modernist urban planning and people’s use of space are articulated with particular political projects of nation-building, colonialism, socialism etc.
- Apply the concerns of various anthropological writings to contemporary processes of spatial design and groups or individuals’ use of space
Assessment tasks
- Minor Essay
- Major Essay
- Media-Watch Journal
- Tutorial
Problem Solving and Research Capability
Our graduates should be capable of researching; of analysing, and interpreting and assessing data and information in various forms; of drawing connections across fields of knowledge; and they should be able to relate their knowledge to complex situations at work or in the world, in order to diagnose and solve problems. We want them to have the confidence to take the initiative in doing so, within an awareness of their own limitations.
This graduate capability is supported by:
Learning outcomes
- Account for the diversity of urban environments
- Apply the concerns of various anthropological writings to contemporary processes of spatial design and groups or individuals’ use of space
Assessment tasks
- Minor Essay
- Major Essay
- Media-Watch Journal
- Tutorial
Creative and Innovative
Our graduates will also be capable of creative thinking and of creating knowledge. They will be imaginative and open to experience and capable of innovation at work and in the community. We want them to be engaged in applying their critical, creative thinking.
This graduate capability is supported by:
Learning outcome
- Apply the concerns of various anthropological writings to contemporary processes of spatial design and groups or individuals’ use of space
Assessment tasks
- Minor Essay
- Media-Watch Journal
- Tutorial
Effective Communication
We want to develop in our students the ability to communicate and convey their views in forms effective with different audiences. We want our graduates to take with them the capability to read, listen, question, gather and evaluate information resources in a variety of formats, assess, write clearly, speak effectively, and to use visual communication and communication technologies as appropriate.
This graduate capability is supported by:
Learning outcomes
- Account for the diversity of urban environments
- Identify relations between built form, culture, and individuals’ experiences of space
- Analyse how architectural forms, modernist urban planning and people’s use of space are articulated with particular political projects of nation-building, colonialism, socialism etc.
- Apply the concerns of various anthropological writings to contemporary processes of spatial design and groups or individuals’ use of space
Assessment tasks
- Minor Essay
- Major Essay
- Media-Watch Journal
- Tutorial
Engaged and Ethical Local and Global citizens
As local citizens our graduates will be aware of indigenous perspectives and of the nation's historical context. They will be engaged with the challenges of contemporary society and with knowledge and ideas. We want our graduates to have respect for diversity, to be open-minded, sensitive to others and inclusive, and to be open to other cultures and perspectives: they should have a level of cultural literacy. Our graduates should be aware of disadvantage and social justice, and be willing to participate to help create a wiser and better society.
This graduate capability is supported by:
Learning outcomes
- Identify relations between built form, culture, and individuals’ experiences of space
- Analyse how architectural forms, modernist urban planning and people’s use of space are articulated with particular political projects of nation-building, colonialism, socialism etc.
Assessment tasks
- Minor Essay
- Major Essay
- Media-Watch Journal
- Tutorial
Socially and Environmentally Active and Responsible
We want our graduates to be aware of and have respect for self and others; to be able to work with others as a leader and a team player; to have a sense of connectedness with others and country; and to have a sense of mutual obligation. Our graduates should be informed and active participants in moving society towards sustainability.
This graduate capability is supported by:
Learning outcomes
- Identify relations between built form, culture, and individuals’ experiences of space
- Analyse how architectural forms, modernist urban planning and people’s use of space are articulated with particular political projects of nation-building, colonialism, socialism etc.
Assessment tasks
- Minor Essay
- Major Essay
- Media-Watch Journal
- Tutorial