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| Semester | Herbstsemester 2020 |
| Angebotsmuster | einmalig |
| Dozierende | Johannes Schubert (jon.schubert@unibas.ch, BeurteilerIn) |
| Inhalt | This course investigates the various ways in which the critical social sciences have sought to apprehend infrastructures as political projects and forms of power and control, but also as technologies of enchantment and objects of desire and aspiration. We also examine their flipside and their affective charge as melancholic objects of ruination, materialising the debris of capitalism and collapsed futures. Drawing on close readings and discussions of texts mainly from anthropology, but also from science and technology studies, history, geography, and urban studies, students should come out with a firm knowledge of the social and political potency and supposed developmental benefits of infrastructures, and the different conceptual approaches to make sense of them. We will look at roads, ports/airports, power plants and dams, as well as urban housing projects, and reflect on how visual methods can help us analyse and interpret them. We will think about the rise of Dubai Modernity and World Class cities by looking at ambitious urban development projects such as the construction of ‘new centralities’, and grand ‘waterfronts’. We will also look at the material and aesthetic qualities of different building materials like wood, stone and cement, and at the techno-politics of service infrastructures such as electricity, water, and sewage. |
| Lernziele | Students acquire a firm knowledge of the social and political potency and supposed developmental benefits of infrastructures, and the different conceptual approaches to make sense of them. |
| Literatur | Carse, Ashley. 2016. ‘Keyword: Infrastructure. How a Humble French Engineering Term Shaped the Modern World.’ In Infrastructures and Social Complexity: A Companion, edited by Penelope Harvey, Casper Bruun Jensen, and Atsuro Morita, 1 edition, 27–39. London ; New York: Routledge. Nugent, Paul. 2018. ‘Africa’s Re-Enchantment with Big Infrastructure: White Elephants Dancing in Virtuous Circles?’ In Extractive Industries and Changing State Dynamics in Africa. Beyond the Resource Curse, edited by Jon Schubert, Ulf Engel, and Elísio Macamo, 22–40. Routledge Studies in African Development. London: Routledge. Hetherington, Kregg. 2014. ‘Waiting for the Surveyor: Development Promises and the Temporality of Infrastructure’. The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology 19 (2): 195–211. |
| Bemerkungen | Jon Schubert is Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Brunel University, London (The Afterlives of Oil-Backed Infrastructures in an Angolan Port City). He earned his PhD in Social Anthropology at the Centre for African Studies, University of Edinburgh in 2014 (Working the System: Amnesia, Affect, and the Aesthetics of Power in the “New Angola”). |
| Teilnahmebedingungen | This course is primarily open to MA-level students in African Studies, Sociology, and Social Anthropology, but also to motivated students from Critical Urbanisms, Cultural Anthropology, Global and European Studies, and Human Geography). An online participation is possible. |
| Anmeldung zur Lehrveranstaltung | Sign up via ADAM; first intro session on 25 September, Rheinsprung 21. |
| Unterrichtssprache | Englisch |
| Einsatz digitaler Medien | kein spezifischer Einsatz |
| Intervall | Wochentag | Zeit | Raum |
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Keine Einzeltermine verfügbar, bitte informieren Sie sich direkt bei den Dozierenden.
| Module |
Modul: Conflicts and Peacebuilding (Master Studiengang: Changing Societies: Migration – Conflicts – Resources ) Modul: Erweiterung Gesellschaftswissenschaften M.A. (Master Studienfach: Politikwissenschaft) Modul: Fachkompetenz Globaler Wandel (Master Studienfach: Geographie) Modul: Fields: Environment and Development (Master Studiengang: African Studies) Modul: Fields: Governance and Politics (Master Studiengang: African Studies) Modul: Interdisciplinary and Applied African Studies (Master Studiengang: African Studies) Modul: Projects and Processes of Urbanization (Master Studiengang: Critical Urbanisms (Studienbeginn vor 01.08.2020)) Modul: The Urban across Disciplines (Master Studiengang: Critical Urbanisms) Modul: Theory and General Anthropology (Master Studienfach: Anthropology) Modul: Ungleichheit, Konflikt, Kultur (Master Studienfach: Soziologie) Vertiefungsmodul Global Europe: Staatlichkeit, Entwicklung und Globalisierung (Masterstudium: European Global Studies) |
| Leistungsüberprüfung | Lehrveranst.-begleitend |
| Hinweise zur Leistungsüberprüfung | This is a discussion seminar, and your learning success depends on commitment and involvement of all participants. This only works if you arrive well-prepared to actively participate in the discussions and listen to your peers. The reading list includes two core readings per session that all students are expected to read and prepare for discussion — these are normally journal articles or book chapters, though in some sessions we will rely on shorter, alternative forms of conveying analytical insights to academic and non-academic audiences (online resources, shorter posts, etc.). In addition, students will lead the weekly discussion based on a selection of additional readings. Finally, the syllabus includes suggestions for additional readings (incl. some non-African case studies) for those wishing to develop specific topics in greater depth (for their essay, for example). Students will be assessed based on their participation to discussions in class, including their reading notes/response papers (25%); their short presentations/leading of the discussion (25%); and a final 2,000-word photo essay (50%). |
| An-/Abmeldung zur Leistungsüberprüfung | Anmelden: Belegen; Abmelden: nicht erforderlich |
| Wiederholungsprüfung | keine Wiederholungsprüfung |
| Skala | Pass / Fail |
| Wiederholtes Belegen | nicht wiederholbar |
| Zuständige Fakultät | Philosophisch-Historische Fakultät, studadmin-philhist@unibas.ch |
| Anbietende Organisationseinheit | Fachbereich Soziologie |