ANTH 325: Displacement and Refugees (GS)

Course Description

People move for a variety of reasons: in search of territory to forage, fields to till, spouses to marry, enemies to fight, material and symbolic valuables to acquire, or looking for a refuge due to a fear of harm to their well-being in their habitual places of residences. In this global scholar course offered by the anthropology program, our orientation is toward a particular form of human movement and its consequences: forced displacement and refugees/asylum seekers. We begin by inquiring into the main conceptual and typological issues regarding human mobility and coercion. We then examine the global history of displacements by offering an inventory of forced migration in the recent past. We will also analyze issues of gender, sociocultural integration, coping mechanisms, transnational identities, and socioeconomic processes as they relate to displacement and refugees in different parts of the world.