课程详述

COURSE SPECIFICATION

以下课程信息可能根据实际授课需要或在课程检讨之后产生变动。如对课程有任何疑问，请

联系授课教师。

The course information as follows may be subject to change, either during the session because of unforeseen

circumstances, or following review of the course at the end of the session. Queries about the course should be directed to the

course instructor.

课程名称 Course Title

解读民族志 Reading Ethnography

授课院系

Originating Department

社会科学中心 Center for Social Sciences

课程编号

Course Code

SS139

课程学分 Credit Value

课程类别

Course Type

通识选修课程 General Education (GE) Elective Courses

授课学期

Semester

2021-2022 学年第三学期（夏季）2021-2022 Summer Semester

授课语言

Teaching Language

英文 English

授课教师、所属学系、联系方

式（如属团队授课，请列明其

他授课教师）

Instructor(s), Affiliation&

Contact

（For team teaching, please list

allinstructors）

陈娟青年会士 Juan Chen, Junior Fellow

南方科技大学人文社会科学荣誉学会 Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts, SUSTech

e-mail：chenj@mail.sustech.edu.cn

实验员/助教、所属学系、联系

方式

Tutor/TA(s), Contact

无 NA

10.

选课人数限额(可不填)

Maximum Enrolment

（Optional）

11.

授课方式

Delivery Method

讲授

Lectures

习题/辅导/讨论

Tutorials

实验/实习

Lab/Practical

其它(请具体注明)

Other（Pleasespecify）

总学时

Total

学时数

Credit Hours

12.

先修课程、其它学习要求

Pre-requisites or Other

Academic Requirements

无 NA

13.

后续课程、其它学习规划

Courses for which this

course is a pre-requisite

无 NA

14.

其它要求修读本课程的学系

Cross-listing Dept.

无 NA

教学大纲及教学日历 SYLLABUS

15.

教学目标 Course Objectives

Specifically, this course aims to help the students:

 Understand different ways of reading an ethnography (a.k.a. critical reading) and critique the writing of

anthropologists

 Understand ways of identifying and analysing the core ideas in order to apply these ideas to other areas of

study.

 Understand different ways of reading ethnographies anthropologically and developing an anthropological

imagination of their own.

16.

预达学习成果 Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this course, students are expected to

 Understand the connection between anthropology as a discipline and ethnography

 Understand the use of method and theory in ethnography

 Understand different ways of exploring methodological and theoretical debates in ethnography

17.

课程内容及教学日历（如授课语言以英文为主，则课程内容介绍可以用英文；如团队教学或模块教学，教学日历须注明

主讲人）

Course Contents (in Parts/Chapters/Sections/Weeks. Please notify name of instructor for course section(s), if

this is a team teaching or module course.)

Week 1: Introduction to Reading Ethnography (2-credit hours)

 Self-introduction

 Course introduction: the syllabus

 The concerns and distinctiveness of ethnography

 Shaping ethnography

Week 2: Comparison and the ethnographic outlook (2-credit hours)

 Identifying comparison

 Roles and aims of comparison

 Comparison and the creation of ethnographic concepts

 Activities

Week 3: Activities, Individual Presentation and Group Discussion (2-credit hours)

 Give examples of how the author uses explicit comparison to establish an argument.

 Can you distinguish implicit comparisons of the kind discussed in this chapter? 󳮁

 How does the author connect the broader conceptual discussion at the beginning of her argument with her

specific ethnography? 󳮁

 What similarities and differences might we draw between the comparative approach taken here and that taken

by the author in the example discussed in the chapter above?

 By way of the comparisons she has made, what new concept is the author introducing to anthropological

conversations?

Week 4: People in context (2-credit hours)

 Differentiation as the basis for interpretation and explanation

 Individuals and groups – levels of integration in the ethnographic life world

 Diversity versus integration

Week 5: Activities, Individual Presentation and Group Discussion (2-credit hours)

 What is an important institution for understanding gender relations in the ethnography and why?

 How does a sense of the context as a whole emerge from the detail the author presents in the text? 󳮁

 What part does the demonstration of diversity play in the author’s argument? 󳮁

 What kinds of different roles and forms of agency does the author highlight through the voices she presents?󳮁

 Can you see elements of a ‘hermeneutic circle’ at work in the author’s account? Pick out some examples. 󳮁

Week 6: Relationships and meanings (2-credit hours)

 How ethnographers write about relationships

 Building the picture of relationships according to key metaphors

 Abstracting relational pattern as a basis for comparison

 The difference between the ethnographer’s analysis and reality

Week 7: Activities, Individual Presentation and Group Discussion (2-credit hours)

 Give an example of the distinct ideas, images and metaphors orienting the way people think about male and

female relationships in the author’s account. 󳮁

 Which kinds of relationship count? 󳮁

 Explore processes of ethnographic scene-setting in the author’s article, as opposed to processes of

simplification and abstraction. 󳮁

 How does a study of relationships shed light on the issues that the author raises in the final paragraph? 󳮁

Week 8: Narrating the immediate (2-credit hours)

 Narrating the immediate

 Transience and recurrence

 Narratives of the immediate and the construction of anthropological arguments

Week 9: Activities, Individual Presentation and Group Discussion (2-credit hours)

 What are the key stylistic devices that the writer uses to give the reader a feel for the quality of life in that

society?󳮁

 At what points does the author use the ethnographic present and at what points does he use the past tense,

and what does he achieve with each style of narration? 󳮁

 What similarities and differences might we draw between the narrative style of Lévi-Strauss and those of

Benedict and Abu-Lughod in the chapter above? 󳮁

 Give examples of the way the author interweaves narrative of the immediate and theoretical argument. 󳮁

 Summarise the author’ conclusions, and evaluate whether they are adequately supported by the ethnographic

material he provides. 󳮁

Week 10: Ethnography as argument (2-credit hours)