Content

Everyday expressive culture in the digital world – as in posting selfies, sharing memes, liking influencer’s posts – provides a window on people’s subjectivities, opinions and aspirations, and also mediate therein. This dialectics will be explored via case studies ranging from all over the world, e.g. online slur in Indian WhatsApp groups; Yolngu electronic renderings of the Dreamland (Australian Aborigines); the emergence of woke and anti-woke activism online; big data politics in India; online mobilization for work by conservationists and protectors of the disappearing Oranutang in Borneo; and ideologies of the digital among anthropologists.

The classes are intended to assess the complex social and political dimensions of popular culture in the digital world, and the breadth of forms through which people’s experiences – social, political, religious – are made real, given meaning and are communicated electronically. Students will become familiar with concepts such as scalable sociality, recursive publics, swarms, digital savior complex, and small acts in order to make sense of the centrality of social media in many people’s lives, in the Global North and the Global South. At the same time, these concepts and theories will be situated within the discipline of anthropology, showcasing how digital anthropology both builds upon and informs theories about relatedness, agency, and globalization.

Course material

Powerpoint; lecture notes; PDFs of articles and book chapters uploaded on Toledo and LIMO.

Language of instruction: more information

in English

Format: more information

Flipped classroom - Guest lecture

The lecturer (and guest lecturers) initiate students in the anthropological study of social media.

Students are expected to

- attend classes, present texts in groups, and actively participate in online discussions and in the discussions set up by the students;

- have read or viewed ethnographic material or other texts before the classes (e.g. advertisements; newspaper article; chapter of a fiction book; sequences of films, etc.). These will be made available on the electronic platform of the university and via LIMO.