Crisis, Culture and Resistance (ANTH30023)

The first decades of the 21st century have been characterised by intensifying economic, social, political, and environmental crises. From the collapse of national economies struggling under insurmountable debt to the ravages of climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic, communities all over the world are responding to these challenges in ways that are both radical and quotidian.

In this subject, we draw on interdisciplinary scholarship on social movements to consider both contemporary and historical responses to a range of differently experienced crises. Why have these movements organised in the ways that they have and at the times that they have? What social norms, assumptions, and practices have they sought to challenge? What cultural resources have they built upon and/or reconfigured? And how have they sought to prevent the co-optation and commodification of cultural symbols by powerful interests?

Through close readings of ethnographic work on a range of social movements (including anti-colonial, anti-racist, labour, environmental, Indigenous, and anti-corporate), we explore how subaltern struggles have been represented, articulated, and operationalised in recent years. In particular, we consider the figure of the 'activist anthropologist,' asking questions about the forms of critique and participation in which ethnographers of social movements are increasingly engaged.