TOPICS: ANTHROPOLOGY OF IDENTITY: RACE, ETHNICITY & GENDER in Spring 2023 (AN2091D)

In this course, we will explore how human identity has been conceived from anthropological perspectives. We will pay special attention to the diversity and complexity of race, ethnicity, and gender across a range of cultural contexts and examine how these markers of identity are constructed, practised in lived experience, how they intersect, and how they differ according to a variety of cultural, religious, and political world-views. We will also have to vary scales and reconsider the question of group identity versus individual identity. India as a case study allows us to explore its unique situation of having been theorized as “the mother of western civilization”. It also offers a fruitful research field on gender identity through the "third gender" that was recognized by the Indian constitution in 2014.