Ethnography of Law, Science, and Medicine

Announcements and Important Links
- http://www.bigwords.com/ -- for book price comparisons (Note: Jennifer's book is cheapest in the school book store, although as of today, 9/8, none were in stock)

- http://www.amazon.com/gp/student/signup/info -- to sign up for amazon prime (free 2 day shipping) free for one year - The Luker book should be available in the book store by the end of this week.

Course Description
This course introduces Division II students to qualitative anthropological methods. Through a series of ethnographic exercises, students will build a methodological toolkit for investigating complex social problems. Through the critical reading and analysis of ethnographic texts, students will also learn about the substantive areas of legal anthropology, science studies, and critical medical anthropology. The course will culminate in final mini-ethnographic research projects designed by students. Enrollment limited to 18 Division II students. No distribution requirements or learning goals are fulfilled by this course.

Required Texts
Books are available for purchase in the Hampshire College Bookstore (in the Airport Lounge). Readings that come from the books will be indicated by (T) for text. Unless otherwise indicated, other course readings are available for download on the course website and/or through direct online link. Online readings will be marked by (O). The syllabus is organized chronologically. You should do the readings in advance of the class for which they are scheduled.

Booth, Wayne C., Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams 2008 The craft of research. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (T)

Good, Byron, et al. 2010 A reader in medical anthropology: theoretical trajectories, emergent realities. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. (T) (Reader)

Hamilton, Jennifer A. 2009 Indigeneity in the courtroom: law, culture, and the production of difference in North American courts. New York: Routledge. (T)

Lock, Margaret, and Vinh-Kim Nguyen 2010 An anthropology of biomedicine. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. (T)

Luker, Kristin 2008 Salsa dancing into the social sciences: research in an age of info-glut. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (T)

Murchison, Julian M. 2010 Ethnography essentials: designing, conducting, and presenting your research. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. (T)

NB: You should always bring hard copies of readings to class (i.e. books and/or printed copies of articles), and I expect to see evidence of careful reading and note-taking. If necessary, I will occasionally collect your copies of the readings in order to get a sense of how you’re working through course materials.

Syllabus
COURSE SCHEDULE  This course schedule is subject to change based on the needs of the class. You are responsible for any changes to this syllabus announced during class. Any changes will also be posted on the HampNet Course Website. The online version of the syllabus should be considered the most up-to-date.

Week 1

Wed Sep 8

Introduction to Ethnography of Law, Science and Medicine

Week 2

Mon Sep 13

Introductory Perspectives

Luker, "Salsa Dancing? In the Social Sciences?" pp. 1-21 (T) and (O)

Murchison, "What Is Ethnography?" pp. 1-15 (T) and (O)

Based on your interests, read one or more of the following:

Starr and Goodale, “Introduction: Legal Ethnography: New Dialogues, Enduring Methods,” in Practicing Ethnography in Law, pp. 1-10 (O)

Hess, “Ethnography and the Development of Science and Technology Studies,” in Handbook of Ethnography, pp. 234-245 (O)

Bloor, “The Ethnography of Health and Medicine,” in Handbook of Ethnography, pp. 177-187 (O)

<span style="font-weight: bold;"ASSIGNMENT: Keeping with the general subject areas of the course (i.e. law, science, medicine), complete the Introductory Exercise in Luker (pp. 20-21); due at the beginning of class. Bring binder or notebook for Research Journal.

Wed Sep 15

Introductory Perspectives

Good et al., “Introduction,” pp. 1-6 (T) (Reader)

Lock &amp; Nguyen, “Introduction,” pp. 1-14 (T) Lock &amp; Nguyen, “Biomedical Technologies in Practice,” pp. 17-31 (T) Lock &amp; Nguyen, “Anthropologies of Medicine,” pp. 57-82 (T)

Recommended: Lock &amp; Nguyen, “The Normal Body,” pp. 32-56 (T) Lock &amp; Nguyen, “Local Biologies and Human Difference,” pp. 83-109 (T) ASSIGNMENT: Course contract due

Week 3

Mon Sep 20

Introductory Perspectives

Conley and O’Barr, excerpts from Rules Versus Relationships: The Ethnography of Legal Discourse, pp. ix-19 and pp. 166-179 (O)

Darian-Smith, Eve 2004 Ethnographies of Law. In The Blackwell Companion to Law and Society. A. Sarat, ed. Pp. 545-568. Malden, MA: Blackwell. (O)

Luker, “What Is This a Case of, Anyway?” pp. 51-75 (T)

Recommended: Nader, Laura 2002 Evolving an Ethnography of Law: A Personal Document. In The Life of the Law: Anthropological Projects. Pp. 18-71. Berkeley: University of California Press. (O)

ASSIGNMENT: Luker, Exercise in Chapter 4 ASSIGNMENT: Research Question due

Wed Sep 22

Introductory Perspectives: The Social Life of Things NB: Readings will also be used for Ethnographic Exercise #1

Appadurai, Arjun 1986 Introduction: Commodities and the Politics of Value. In The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective. A. Appadurai, ed. Pp. 3-63. New York: Cambridge University Press. (O) Read: pp. 3-16; pp. 41-45 (stop after 1st paragraph)

Lock &amp; Nguyen, “The Social Life of Organs,” pp. 229-253 (T)

Recommended: Cohen, “Where It Hurts: Indian Material for an Ethics of Organ Transplantation,” pp. 284-299 (T) (Reader)

Franklin, Sarah, and Celia Roberts 2006 Studying PGD. In Born and made: an ethnography of preimplantation genetic diagnosis. Pp. 75-93. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. (O)

Week 4

Mon Sep 27

Meet the Ethnographer Series

Dr. Debbora Battaglia, Five College Anniversary Professor and Professor of Anthropology, Mount Holyoke College http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/misc/profile/dbattagl.shtml

Battaglia, Debbora 2007 Where Do We Find Our Monsters? In Anthropology and science: epistemologies in practice. J. Edwards, P. Harvey, and P. Wade, eds. Oxford and New York: Berg. (O)

ASSIGNMENT: Ethnographic Exercise #1 due (The Social Life of Things)

Wed Sep 29

Introductory Perspectives: Biographies of Scientific (and Legal) Objects NB: Readings will also be used for Ethnographic Exercise #2

Daston, Lorraine 2000 The Coming into Being of Scientific Objects. In Biographies of scientific objects. L. Daston, ed. Pp. 1-14. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. (O)

Landecker, “Immortality, In Vitro: A History of the HeLa Cell Line,” pp. 353-366 (T) (Reader)

ASSIGNMENT: Annotated Bibliography due 

Week 5

 Mon Oct 4

Introductory Perspectives: Laboratory Ethnography

Latour and Woolgar, excerpts from Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts, pp. 11-41 (O)

Petryna, “Biological Citizenship: The Science and Politics of Chernobyl-Exposed Populations,” pp. 199-212 (T) (Reader)

ASSIGNMENT: Luker, Exercise in Chapter 5 

Wed Oct 6

Meet the Ethnographer Series Ethics of Interviewing

Dr. Lynn Morgan, Mary E. Wooley Professor of Anthropology, Mount Holyoke College http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/misc/profile/lmmorgan.shtml

Mahmood, Saba 2005 Preface. In Politics of piety: the Islamic revival and the feminist subject. Pp. ix-xii. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (O) http://books.google.com/books?id=jcyHpc_bugcC&amp;lpg=PP1&amp;dq=politics%20of%20piety&amp;pg=PP1#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false

ASSIGNMENT: Ethnographic Exercise #2 due

Week 6

''Mon Oct 11

October break -- NO CLASS

Wed Oct 13

Meet the Ethnographer Series Dr. Jane Anderson, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, UMass-Amherst www.andersonip.info

Readings: TBD

ASSIGNMENT: Literature review due

Week 7

Mon Oct 18

Legal Documents as Ethnographic Objects NB: Readings will also be used for Ethnographic Exercise #3

Hamilton, Indigeneity in the Courtroom, Introduction pp. 1-6 and Chapter 5 pp. 71-88 (T) Plus one of the following: Chapters 2, 3, or 4 (T) (see introduction for summaries of each chapter)

ASSIGNMENT: Luker, Exercise in Chapter 7 

Wed Oct 20

Meet the Ethnographer Series Dr. Katherine Lemons, Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Smith College

Readings TBD

ASSIGNMENT: Luker, Exercise in Chapter 8

Week 8

Mon Oct 25

The Illness Narratives NB: Readings will also be used for Ethnographic Exercise #4

Good et al., Introduction to Part II: Illness and Narrative, Body and Experience, pp. 79-84 (T) (Reader)

Kleinman, from The Illness Narratives, “The Meaning of Symptoms and Disorders,” pp. 1-30 and “A Method for the Care of the Chronically Ill,” pp. 227-251 (O)

Biehl, “Human Pharmakon: Symptoms, Technologies, Subjectivities,” pp. 213-231 (T) (Reader)

Recommended: Kleinman, “Medicine’s Symbolic Reality: On a Central Problem in the Philosophy of Medicine,” pp. 85-90 (T) (Reader)

Lock &amp; Nguyen, “The Matter of the Self,” pp. 283-302 (T)

ASSIGNMENT: Ethnographic Exercise #3 due (Documents)

Wed Oct 27

Meet the Ethnographer Series

Dr. Barbara Yngvesson, Professor of Anthropology, Hampshire College http://www.hampshire.edu/faculty/byngvesson.htm

Yngvesson, “A Letter” and “Prologue,” pp. 1-9 and “Return,” pp. 144-172, in Belonging in an Adopted World: Race, Identity, and Transnational Adoption (O)

ASSIGNMENT: Methods Proposal due

Week 9

Mon Nov 1

Mini-Ethnography Peer Review (in class)

ASSIGNMENT: Mini-Ethnography Proposal due

We will also be doing peer review for this part of the assignment. This class is a collaborative effort, and your responsibility is to one another. In order for peer review to work and for all of you to get the most out of the process, you must come to class ready to participate. If you do not come to class on time and prepared with two printed copies of your research proposal, you will a) face my wrath; and, b) be given an additional assignment to complete by Monday.

Wed Nov 3 Advising Day—NO CLASS

Please see my Hampedia Office Hours page for available meeting times.

Week 10

Mon Nov 8 Meet the Ethnographer Series

Dr. Betsy Krause, Associate Professor of Anthropology, UMass-Amherst http://works.bepress.com/elizabeth_krause/

Readings TBD

ASSIGNMENT: Ethnographic Exercise #4 due (Illness Narratives)

Wed Nov 10 Meet the Ethnographer Series The Ethics of Listening

Dr. Chris Dole, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Amherst College https://www.amherst.edu/people/facstaff/cdole

Biehl, João, and Peter Locke 2010 Deleuze and the Anthropology of Becoming. Current anthropology 51(3):317-337. [NB: “Comments” section, pp. 338-351, not required reading] (O)

Das, Veena 2007 The Event and the Everyday. In Life and words: violence and the descent into the ordinary. Pp. 1-17. Berkeley: University of California Press. (O)

Week 11''

Mon Nov 15 Meet the Ethnographer Series

Dr. Deepa S. Reddy, University of Houston—Clear Lake and Rice University http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/hsh/reddy/

Hamilton, Jennifer A. 2009 On the Ethics of Unusable Data. In Fieldwork is not what it used to be: learning anthropology's method in a time of transition. J.D. Faubion and G.E. Marcus, eds. Pp. 73-88. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. (O)

Reddy, Deepa S. 2007 Good Gifts for the Common Good: Blood and Bioethics in the Market of Genetic Research. Cultural Anthropology 22(3):429-472. (O) 2009 Caught! The Predicaments of Ethnography in Collaboration. In Fieldwork is not what it used to be: learning anthropology's method in a time of transition. J.D. Faubion and G.E. Marcus, eds. Pp. 89-112. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. (O)

Recommended: Lock &amp; Nguyen, “Human Difference Revisited: 348-358 (T)

Wed Nov 17 NB: Readings will be used for Ethnographic Exercise #5

Netnography—Independent Research Session Kozinets, Excerpts from Netnography: Doing Ethnographic Research Online, pp. 1-20, pp. 95-135 (O)

Week 12

Mon Nov 22 Governmentalities and Biological Citizenship

Good et al., “Introduction to Part III: Governmentalities and Biological Citizenship,” pp. 177-180 (T) (Reader)

Rhodes, “Dreaming of Psychiatric Citizenship: A Case Study of Supermax Confinement,” pp. 181-198 (T) (Reader)

Ticktin, “Where Ethics and Politics Meet: The Violence of Humanitarianism in France,” pp. 245-262 (T) (Reader)

ASSIGNMENT: Ethnographic Exercise #5 due at the beginning of class

Wed Nov 24 Thanksgiving Break—NO CLASS

Week 13

Mon Nov 29 Workshopping Professor Hamilton’s ethnographic research I am in the process of designing a new ethnographic project and would like to get feedback from you. Over the course of the semester, you will develop expertise in ethnographic theory and methods, and now it is time to put that knowledge to use. Critique away! Share your new knowledge and perspectives! I will give you some kind of writing (proposal, draft manuscript, etc) and will ask you for your comments.

Readings: Lock &amp; Nguyen, “Who Owns the Body?” pp. 205-228 (T) Lock &amp; Nguyen, Part IV: Elusive Agents and Moral Disruption (T) Hamilton, TBD (O)

Wed Dec 1 Floater period; if floater not needed, course period reserved for review/mini-ethnography troubleshooting

ASSIGNMENT: Ethnographic Exercise #6 due

Week 14

Mon Dec 6 Meet the Ethnographer Series Dr. Suzanne Zhang-Gottschang, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Smith College http://www.smith.edu/anthro/faculty_gottschang.php

Readings: TBD

Wed Dec 8 Last day of class

ASSIGNMENT: Mini-Ethnography Final (automatic extension until December 10th at noon)

ASSIGNMENT: Self-Evaluations and portfolios due Friday December 10th at noon

Online Tools
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Course Requirements and Expectations
This class is comprised of challenging subject matter and is designed to be discussion-based and cumulative. You are encouraged to be an active participant and listener in class; thus, attendance and preparation are necessary and mandatory. You are expected to complete all readings promptly and to come to class on time with questions and comments. You are also expected to take notes during lectures and discussions.

This is a writing-intensive course. All assignments must be completed promptly and thoroughly in order to receive a final evaluation for the course. Unless otherwise indicated, all assignments are due at the beginning of class. Late assignments will be noted on a student’s evaluation and/or will be reflected in a student’s grade. Consistently late assignments will result in the student being asked to withdraw from the course. More than one unexcused absence throughout the term will result in a “no evaluation.” More than three absences for any reason will result in a “no evaluation.” This includes classes missed during the drop/add period.

If you miss class for any reason, you are responsible for making up any readings/assignments/notes from that day. You should consult the course websites and your peers for work you’ve missed.

Films are an integral part of course materials and may only be viewed in class. Assignments will often be started and worked on during class time so that you can benefit from interactive engagement with me and with your peers.

If you are struggling with course materials or are experiencing other difficulties that interfere with course work, please get in touch with me immediately. I can’t help you if I don’t know there’s a problem.

Other Stuff Please turn off all cell phones, Blackberries, pagers, and other distracting, ringing, singing, texting, non-course-related machines.

Laptops are allowed in class for presentations or for designated in-class research only. You should be fully engaged during class lectures and discussions, and laptops are a serious distraction to the user and those around him or her. I will allow exceptions to this rule only in cases of a documented learning difference or other extenuating circumstances. If you require permission to use a laptop during class, please consult with me privately within the first two course periods. If you are granted permission, you are expected to use the laptop for course purposes only. Any abuse of laptop use during class time will result in a revocation of privileges regardless of accommodations.

Course Evaluation
Evaluation Criteria Final evaluations will focus on the following areas: • effort, especially willingness to challenge oneself • commitment to working well with one’s peers and being full participant in a collective learning environment • attendance, preparation, and participation • skills development especially in critical reading and writing • quality of written work and attention to detail • individual improvement throughout the semester

Course Policies
Students with Disabilities Any student with a documented disability needing academic adjustments or accommodations is requested to speak with me by our second class period. All discussions will remain confidential. Students should also contact Joel Dansky, Hampshire’s Disabilities Services Coordinator. He may be reached at 413-559-5423 or via email jdansky@hampshire.edu. For more information, please see the Disabilities Services webpage: http://www.hampshire.edu/casa/9138.htm

Ethics of Scholarship Hampshire College is part of a broader community of scholars, a community where ideas, hypotheses, new concepts, and carefully established facts are the currency. None of us, faculty or students, is able to survive without borrowing from the work of others. Just as we expect to have our work recognized in examination reports; reappointments and promotions; or the footnotes of those who borrow from us, so must we carefully recognize those from whom we borrow.

Incompletes Incompletes will be given at my discretion only in cases of documented emergency or special circumstance late in the semester, provided that you have been making satisfactory progress in the course.