Unit information: Global Ethnicities in 2013/14

Unit name	Global Ethnicities
Unit code	SOCIM2119
Credit points	20
Level of study	M/7
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12)
Unit director	Professor. Steve Fenton
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	None
Co-requisites	None
School/department	School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies
Faculty	Faculty of Social Sciences and Law

Description including Unit Aims

This unit will interrogate the concept 'ethnicity' and 'ethnicities' and in particular raise the question of whether the generalised term implies a general phenomenon. Can there be a core meaning to the term ethnicity in multiple contexts across the world? This requires us to consider how far the sociology of ethnicity can be genuinely comparative. Seminars focus on a set of individual cases in a range of countries or regions, with both explicit and implicit comparisons. These include some of the following: Britain, USA, Spain, Portugal, Brazil, former Yugoslavia, and others. The last two seminars examine 'indigenist' ethnicities and the role of state power and predictability.

Aims:

• To explore the extent to which 'ethnicity' may be a universal phenomenon,i.e. applicable in multiple contexts.

• To explore the meaning of ethnicity, and a group of closely related concepts, by exploring the logic of comparability.

• To apply theoretical and conceptual understandings of ethnicity in a series of case studies.

Intended Learning Outcomes

• To understand a critical approach to the idea that 'ethnicity' is a universal phenomenon

• To appreciate the way in which ethnic identities, in formation and expression, are socially and historically contextualised

• To identify case studies which allow comparison

• To understand one case (in a comparative frame) or a pair of cases in order to demonstrate the logic of comparison

Teaching Information

The main method of teaching will be weekly face-to-face seminar sessions which will involve a combination of lecturing, group discussion and student presentations.

Assessment Information

The assessment will relate directly to one of more of the learning outcomes specified above in 15 and will be an extended essay of 4000 words (or equivalent) showing an in-depth understanding and integration of key aspects of the unit.

Reading and References

• Fenton (2010) Ethnicity, Polity Press

• Gil-White F.J. , 1999, How thick is blood?…, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Volume 22, no. 5, September

• Mahmood CK and Armstrong SL 1992 Do Ethnic groups exist? A cognitive perspective on the concept of cultures Ethnology 31 :1 pp. 1-14

• Steve Fenton, 1999, Ethnicity racism class and culture, London: Palgrave pp. 20-49