Anthropology of Public Policies

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The aim of this course is to examine how policy – as a socio-cultural category, a political technology and an instrument of governance – work. We will analyse particular policies: how they are created, how they represent the problem to be solved, their history and genealogies. We will also look on how people react on different policies and what are their effects.

The aim of this course is to examine how policy – as a socio-cultural category, a political technology and an instrument of governance – work. We will analyse particular policies: how they are created, how they represent the problem to be solved, their history and genealogies. We will also look on how people react on different policies and what are their effects. Policies provide taxonomies and instruments for classifying the social world, but they also reflect the existing ones. The study of policy concerns issues like power and governance, ethnicity and identity, language and discourse, and relationships between the global and the local.

The anthropology of policy is a relatively recent sub-discipline. It emerged in the late-1990s and it draws on earlier anthropological concerns with power, governance and social norms. Today, policy is one of the main principles organizing social life.

During the course the instructors, the guests and the students will also reflect on how policies can be studied ethnographically? In order to find the answers to these questions we will read and comment on theoretical literature as well as ethnographic cases of policy production, application, functioning and reception. A quick look on the anthropological approach to state and bureaucracy will also be provided.

Course requirements:

− Reading the main text(s) for each seminar and demonstrating its comprehension during the meeting (class); following the instructors’ guidelines if these are provided. If you have not read the text it counts as an absence.

− You are expected to have the text with you and be able to use it during the class!

− Bringing minimum two questions to each text to share and to discuss with the group members

− Taking an active part in the seminars’ discussions.

− Fulfilling requirements of the final assignment (writing the final essay on time and taking part in the peer evaluation exercise).

- The final assignment will consist of an essay analysing a chosen policy using analytical and methodological approaches discussed during the class. Further on, the essays will go through the peer evaluation process within the group of students and will be graded by the instructors.

Absences

o You are obliged to assist seminars on regular basis unless You have been authorized for an individual organization of studies mode; in the latter case You should negotiate with the professor the mode of participation in classes and the conditions of the assessment.

o The maximum number of absences may not exceed 1/4 of the course (that is 3, and in exceptional cases 4 meetings). Otherwise Your participation can not be graded.

o Every absence, justified or not, must be made up for, which means that the student must master the knowledge that was passed in class.

 To make up for an absence you should write a short essay on the text that was treated in the class and deliver it one week after the absence, before the next class (the deadline may be postponed if you show the sick leave document). Essays delivered later will not be accepted.

 Students that have been absent for health reasons (that is have shown the sick leave document in the next class) or were taking part in other university activities are not exempt from the acquired knowledge on the topic.