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| Semester | fall semester 2023 |
| Course frequency | Every fall sem. |
| Lecturers | Kenny R. Cupers (kenny.cupers@unibas.ch, Assessor) |
| Content | Course Description: This course explores methods of urban and environmental research through the lens of the archive. As a site of selective public and/or private memory, a physical collection of records, and a metaphor for holding knowledge, the archive is key to the production of urban knowledge. Whereas governmental and institutional archives gather much of the material for the narration of history, social movements and civil society organizations have created a range of alternative collections, including oral history and sound records. Historians tend to approach these existing archives as repositories of potential evidence, yet built landscapes and ecologies can themselves be understood as historically layered deposits, constituting archives in their own right. At the same time, the rise of the internet has exploded the notion of what constitutes an archive. This course trains students in archival methods for urban research, while reflecting on political, ethical, and epistemological questions that come with them. The course begins with the premise that archives are not a collection of neutral records of events, but shape power and otherness with regard to gender, class, ethnicity, sexuality, and ability. The course encourages students to approach research as archival intervention and transformation, in collaboration with community and advocacy organizations. Students will learn to combine creative, and critical approaches to research, and gain practical skills that prepare them for individual research projects in urban studies. In order to ensure concrete skill-building, the course entails collaborative research on the theme of “Swiss Corporate Coloniality: Food Ecologies, Corporate Power, and Urbanization through the Lens of Nestlé.” For more information about this theme and past year’s student work from this project, see: corporatecoloniality.net. |
| Learning objectives | - a practical ability to conduct archival research for urban studies a conceptual and critical understanding of the relationship between the archive and the urban / the built and natural environment - an ability to analyze how knowledge is produced through recording, collecting, and curating, and how this shapes social, cultural, and political hierarchies - an ability to develop strategies for creating and assembling records as part of an urban research project. - an ability to work thoughtfully and productively in diverse research teams |
| Bibliography | Rao, Vyjayanthi (2009), “City as Archive: Contemporary Urban Transformations and the Possibility of Politics,” in: International Association for Educating Cities (eds.), Education and Urban Life: 20 Years of Educating Cities, pp. 179-186. Burgum, Samuel (2020), “This City Is An Archive: Squatting History and Urban Authority,” in: Journal of Urban History, Vol. 48, 3 (2022): 504–522 Ann Laura Stoler. “Colonial Archives and Arts of Governance.” Archival Science 2 (2002): 87–109. Stephan Kipfer, “Fanon and space: colonization, urbanization, and liberation from the colonial to the global city” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space (2007): 701-726. Brenner, Neil and Schmid, Christian. “Towards a New Epistemology of the Urban?” City, 19(2-3) (2015): 151-182. https://doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2015.1014712 Rita Kesselring and Gregor Dobler, “Swiss Extractivism: Switzerland’s Role in Zambia’s Copper Sector” Journal of Modern African Studies, 57, 2 (2019): 223-245 Zaheer Baber, “The Plants of Empire: Botanic Gardens, Colonial Power and Botanical Knowledge” Journal of Contemporary Asia, DOI: 10.1080/00472336.2016.1185796 Davis, Janae, Alex A. Moulton, Levi Van Sant, and Brian Williams. 2019. “Anthropocene, Capitalocene,... Plantationocene?: A Manifesto for Ecological Justice in an Age of Global Crises.” Geography Compass 13 (5). Haraway, Donna. 2016. “Making Kin: Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene.” In Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. 99-103. Durham: Duke University Press, 2016. Ariella Azoulay, “Archives: The Commons, Not the Past,” Unlearning Imperialism (Verso, 2019). [Please read the chapter until and including the section “An Unshowable Photograph”] Zeitlyn, David. “Anthropology in and of the Archives: Possible Futures and Contingent Pasts. Archives as Anthropological Surrogates,“ Annual Review of Anthropology (2012) 41: 461–80 Parick Gathara, “The path to colonial reckoning is through archives, not museums,” Al Jazeera, 14 March 2019 Callaci, Emily (2017), “Introduction,” Street Archives and City Life: Popular Intellectuals in Postcolonial Tanzania, Duke University Press, pp. 1-17. Quayon, Ato. ‘Signs of the Times: Discourse Ecologies and Street Life on Oxford Street, Accra.’ City & Society, Vol. 22, No. 1 (2010): 72-96. |
| Comments | The course is open to Master students from other programs with a priority for Critical Urbanisms students on timely registration |
| Admission requirements | The course is open to Master students from other programs with a priority for Critical Urbanisms students on timely registration |
| Language of instruction | English |
| Use of digital media | No specific media used |
| Interval | Weekday | Time | Room |
|---|---|---|---|
| wöchentlich | Tuesday | 10.15-14.00 | Alte Gewerbeschule, Studio 357 |
| Date | Time | Room |
|---|---|---|
| Tuesday 10.10.2023 | 10.15-14.00 | Alte Gewerbeschule, Studio 357 |
| Tuesday 17.10.2023 | 10.15-14.00 | Alte Gewerbeschule, Studio 357 |
| Tuesday 07.11.2023 | 10.15-14.00 | Alte Gewerbeschule, Studio 357 |
| Tuesday 14.11.2023 | 10.15-14.00 | Alte Gewerbeschule, Studio 357 |
| Tuesday 05.12.2023 | 10.15-14.00 | Alte Gewerbeschule, Studio 357 |
| Tuesday 12.12.2023 | 10.15-14.00 | Alte Gewerbeschule, Studio 357 |
| Tuesday 19.12.2023 | 10.15-11.45 | - Siehe Bemerkung, Hörsaal 119 / shared session with Critical Cartography |
| Modules |
Modul: Praktiken (Master's degree program: Cultural Techniques) Modul: Research Lab Kulturanthropologie (Master's degree subject: Cultural Anthropology) Modul: Vertiefung Themenfelder der Geschlechterforschung (Master's degree subject: Gender Studies) Module: Fields: Environment and Development (Master's degree program: African Studies) Module: Fields: Knowledge Production and Transfer (Master's degree program: African Studies) Module: Interdisciplinary and Applied African Studies (Master's degree program: African Studies) Module: Research Skills (Master's degree program: African Studies) Module: Ways of Knowing the City (Master's degree program: Critical Urbanisms) |
| Assessment format | continuous assessment |
| Assessment details | Pass/ Fail |
| Assessment registration/deregistration | Reg.: course registration; dereg.: not required |
| Repeat examination | no repeat examination |
| Scale | Pass / Fail |
| Repeated registration | as often as necessary |
| Responsible faculty | Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, studadmin-philhist@unibas.ch |
| Offered by | Fachbereich Urban Studies |