Topics in Anthropology (Half-Term): Ethnographies of Justice

How does ethnographic writing illuminate movements for justice, rights, and social belonging? Ethnographies of justice trace struggles and setbacks in movements for rights, narrate hopes and strategies of activists, and reveal the scope of conceivable claimants and interests. Contemporary ethnographies call attention to the limits of liberal values upon which movements for justice rest and shed light on wider debates about the kind of world we live in. By centering the innovative approaches of recent monographs, the course asks how ethnographic writing enriches studies of movements for justice and resistance to the infringements of rights.