AANB11050U Struggles for Recognition in Denmark and beyond: Ethnographic cases and critical perspectives.

Volume 2013/2014
Content

‘Recognition’ has become a keyword for understanding conflicts in contemporary plural societies like Denmark and around the world.

This course offers an introduction to the current debates around the concept of ‘recognition’, their intellectual genealogies, political implications, and not least to the challenges and opportunities struggles for recognition pose for anthropologists. The course also offers hands-on ethnographic engagement with ‘struggles for recognition’ in Denmark (and elsewhere). The course is affiliated with the Ethnographic Exploratory and students are thus expected to carry out mini-fieldworks of ‘struggles for recognition’ in Denmark and analyze the data generated in this research in light of the ‘recognition’ debate. (Alternatively, students may work with ethnographic data already collected.)

‘Struggles for recognition’ are often associated with conflicts emerging in multicultural societies: Does the headscarf signify religious commitment or gender inequality? Is the circumcision of Jewish and Muslim boys a legitimate custom or an abuse of human rights? And, more generally, under which conditions can ‘foreigners’ be recognized as proper Danish citizens? In this course, however, we take a much broader view and explore social conflicts in which social actors draw on diverging normative framework for making conflicting claims.

In this broader view, also the following conflicts are seen as struggles for recognition:

  • Disagreements over which rights employees and managers have at a workplace?
  • The controversy over how should the police – and the municipality – should deal with drug consumption in Christiania?
  • Contestations over the role of the Folkekirke in Danish public life and its relationship with the state?
  • Disagreements over how deep institutions like the ‘ligestillingsnævnet’ should intervene into public (and private) life in order to ensure ‘equality’?
  • Conflicts concerning the prioritizing of infrastructure projects in Copenhagen and their impacts on various stakeholders (commuters, cyclists, neighbors, sailors, taxpayers etc.)

What makes the concept of ‘recognition’ so attractive - and challenging - for anthropologists is that it points to the central role conflicts have in defining how we live today (and tomorrow), and which ways of life we come to see as legitimate and desirable. The deep historical roots of ‘recognition’ as a philosophical concept (going back to Aristotle and Hegel, and figuring centrally for contemporary thinkers like Charles Taylor, Jürgen Habermas, and Nancy Frazer), its cross-disciplinary appeal (animating debates in philosophy, sociology, political science, feminism and anthropology), and not least its acute political relevance, make it a useful concept to show the social relevance of ethnographic research.

Learning Outcome

The student’s portfolio, classroom participation, and the presented poster should demonstrate that the student:

  • has read the literature on ‘struggles for recognition’ discussed in the course and engaged productively with the propositions of this literature and the
  • opportunities and challenges  it poses for anthropology
  • has identified and defined at least one ‘struggle for recognition’ as the object of a ‘mini fieldwork’ to be conducted during the course
  • has conducted a mini fieldwork and generated usable ethnographic data (alternatively, has prepared a set of data from another source after consultation with the instructor)
  • is capable of analyzing the collected ethnographic data in light of the recognition literature, broader anthropological concerns, and classroom discussions
  • has generated a portfolio with research questions, ethnographic data, and preliminary analyses
  • is capable of bringing his or her own research findings to bear on the ‘recognition’ debate
  • is capable of presenting his or her findings at a final colloquium
BSc-, Credit-, Open Education and all international students: 500 pages obligatory literature.
MSc students: 500 pages obligatory literature + 200 pages of literature chosen by students

Literature chosen by students must be relevant to the course’s subject matter.
4 hours of lectures per week for 7 weeks
  • Category
  • Hours
  • Course Preparation
  • 82
  • Exam
  • 30
  • Field Work
  • 58
  • Project work
  • 12
  • Seminar
  • 28
  • Total
  • 210
Credit
10 ECTS
Type of assessment
Portfolio
Obligatory portfolio assignments: The course lecturer determines the number and length of portfolio assignments. A minimum of 75% thereof will be assessed as the exam. At the end of the course, the lecturer will announce upon which portfolio assignments the assessment will be based.

The portfolio assignments can be written individually or in groups of max. 4 people. Read more about the rules for group examinations in the curriculum 4.3.1. The oral exam can only be done on an individual basis.

The exam will be evaluated on the basis of aims for the course (see description of aims).
Exam registration requirements
The student must participate actively in class, through for example class presentations, in order to be eligible to take the course exam. The course lecturer stipulates the specific requirements for active class participation.
Aid
All aids allowed
Marking scale
7-point grading scale
Censorship form
No external censorship
There is appointed a second internal assessor to assist with the assessment when the first assessor finds this necessary.
Re-exam
1. & 2. Re-exam
For written exams:
A new essay/portfolio with a revised problem statement is submitted at the announced date. The student must register for the re-exam.
For oral exams:
A revised synopsis with a new problem statement is submitted at the announced date. The students must hereafter participate in a new oral exam at the announced date. The student must register for the re-exam.
Criteria for exam assesment

See description of aims

Credit
7,5 ECTS
Type of assessment
Portfolio
Obligatory portfolio assignments: The course lecturer determines the number and length of portfolio assignments. A minimum of 75% thereof will be assessed as the exam. At the end of the course, the lecturer will announce upon which portfolio assignments the assessment will be based.

The portfolio assignments can be written individually or in groups of max. 4 people. Read more about the rules for group examinations in the curriculum 4.3.1. The oral exam can only be done on an individual basis.

The exam will be evaluated on the basis of aims for the course (see description of aims).
Exam registration requirements
The student must participate actively in class, through for example class presentations, in order to be eligible to take the course exam. The course lecturer stipulates the specific requirements for active class participation.
Aid
All aids allowed
Marking scale
7-point grading scale
Censorship form
No external censorship
There is appointed a second internal assessor to assist with the assessment when the first assessor finds this necessary.
Re-exam
1. & 2. Re-exam
For written exams:
A new essay/portfolio with a revised problem statement is submitted at the announced date. The student must register for the re-exam.
For oral exams:
A revised synopsis with a new problem statement is submitted at the announced date. The students must hereafter participate in a new oral exam at the announced date. The student must register for the re-exam.
Criteria for exam assesment

See description of aims