Macquarie University

Social Movements, Knowledge and Development - ANTH826

This unit trains students to use anthropology in re-examining the taken-for-granted categories of knowledge used in development and modernisation projects that seek to intervene in the lives of others who are less privileged. Students are introduced to three critical theorists (Foucault, Gramsci, de Certeau), as well as to a range of ethnographies. But the unit takes its perspective primarily from groups for whom development is part of a contested present. We re-examine the reform of childbirth and maternal health schemes, for example, from the perspective of 'traditional' midwives and rural women who are used to a range of therapies. We examine the hybrid knowledge systems used in agricultural practices by farmers and by healers. The later part of the unit examines social movements among women, slum dwellers, as well as religious movements, with a special focus on the role of intellectuals in non-government organisations, media and middle class professions in the consolidation of new forms of knowledge related to social movements.