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| Semester | fall semester 2018 |
| Course frequency | Once only |
| Lecturers | Lucy Koechlin (lucy.koechlin@unibas.ch, Assessor) |
| Content | Strictly speaking, there is no coherent body under which an 'anthropology of elections' could be subsumed. However, critical themes and concepts emerge when looking at elections through an anthropological lens. These include issues of citizenship, identies, governmentality, modernities, state and statehood, and not least the ethnographic method itself. In this seminar, we shall focus on elections in Africa for a variety of pertinent reasons. Firstly, on an overarching level, the introduction of multi-party elections across the continent after the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s was hailed as a milestone in the development and modernisation of the African state, whipping up imaginaries of the "end of history" (Francis Fukuyama), with the whole world moving uniformly towards liberal democracy and market economy. What happened de facto was a decade of violence and civil war that swept across West and Central Africa. Whilst today most countries are far more stable, elections signify important periods affecting social actors, identities, practices, and political articulation. To this day, secondly, the period of elections in nearly all African countries are characterised by instability and insecurity, with people fearing violence, everyday life frequently disrupted, and rumours of electoral rigging and threats running wild. Elections, especially presidential elections, are always extra-ordinary periods; liminal spaces in which politics and society are reimagined and reasserted. It is precisely this liminal space around elections that is of interest here: what is it that people read into elections, what images and imaginaries are articulated, what practices become (im)possible? Based on selected readings and films, we shall be looking closely into current elections in Africa, seeking to discern specific aspects and identify general features. Equipped with this dense understanding of elections in Africa, we shall, lastly, reflect together with Dr Barbara Heer, a Swiss anthropologist and politician, on a cross-cutting anthropology of elections enriched with a Swiss perspective. |
| Learning objectives | - Overview over key anthropological literature on politics, democracy and elections in Africa - Discerning understanding of the politics of elections in selected African countries from an anthropological perspective - Engagement with key analyses and concepts around politics, democracy and elections in Africa and beyond |
| Bibliography | Comaroff, John L. and Jean Comaroff. 1997. “Postcolonial Politics and Discourses of Democracy in Southern Africa: An Anthropological Reflection on African Political Modernities.” Journal of Anthropological Research 53(2): 123-146. Paley, Julia. 2002. “Toward an Anthropology of Democracy.” Annual Revue of Anthropology 31: 469-496. |
| Admission requirements | The number of participants is limited to 30 people. The places are assigned according to date of enrollment and subject of study. Priority will be given to the subjects listed under "Modules". |
| Language of instruction | English |
| Use of digital media | No specific media used |
| Course auditors welcome |
| Interval | Weekday | Time | Room |
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No dates available. Please contact the lecturer.
| Modules |
Modul: Basics: Politics (Master's degree program: African Studies) Modul: Erweiterung Gesellschaftswissenschaften M.A. (Master's degree subject: Political Science) Modul: Fields: Governance and Politics (Master's degree program: African Studies) Modul: Sachthemen der Ethnologie (Bachelor's degree subject: Anthropology) Modul: Theory and General Anthropology (Master's degree subject: Anthropology) Modul: Wissenschaftliche Vertiefung in der Ethnologie: Sachthemen (Bachelor's degree subject: Anthropology) |
| Assessment format | continuous assessment |
| Assessment details | All participants will be required to present a short analysis on elections in one of the following African countries: Tanzania, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mali, Nigeria. It is possible to undertake this as group work. The organisation will be discussed in the first session on September 24. |
| Assessment registration/deregistration | Reg.: course registration; dereg.: not required |
| Repeat examination | no repeat examination |
| Scale | Pass / Fail |
| Repeated registration | no repetition |
| Responsible faculty | Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, studadmin-philhist@unibas.ch |
| Offered by | Fachbereich Ethnologie |