AANA18112U East Asian Cities: Urbanization and Big-City Life in Japan, China, and Korea

Volume 2023/2024
Education

From spring 2024 the course is also offered to students at the

- Master Programme in Social Data Science

- Bachelor and Master Programmes in Psychology

- Master Programme in Political Science

- Master programme in Global Development

Enrolled students register the course through the Selfservice. Please contact the study administration at each programme for questions regarding registration.

The course is open to:

  • Exchange and Guest students from abroad
  • Credit students from Danish Universities
Content

The East Asian region (China, Japan, the two Koreas, Taiwan, and Hong Kong) is home to about 1/5 of the world’s population and three of the world’s 11 largest economies. The region has undergone massive economic, social, and political changes in recent decades, most conspicuously expressed in mass-scale urbanization. Today, East Asia hosts about half of the world’s 50 largest cities, and the rural-to-urban development continues at a staggering pace. But how do people live in East Asia’s sprawling cities? What types of social environments and meaning making, everyday realities, and new problems emerge in these vibrant and ever-changing localities? How can the region’s vast cityscapes be approached ethnographically, as a complex field of anthropological enquiry?

In this course, we will engage these questions by focusing on the region’s three most populous countries and four overall themes: living, working, relating, and consuming. Studying and discussing recent ethnographic accounts and region-specific theorizations grounded in the four themes will give us both panoramic and critical insight into urbanization processes, social realities, and new phenomena in East Asia’s cities. What type of atmosphere defines “home” in Japanese middle-class suburbia? How do China’s migrant workers deal with social and spatial  marginalization? How do young South Koreans juggle a precarious job situation, family obligations, and soaring housing prices? And what does the “old” countryside mean to contemporary city-dwellers? Engaging these and related questions involves a range of central anthropological concerns, including development, gender, kinship, insecurity, mobility, and nostalgia. Engaging with the literature, we will train our critical and analytical skills, develop systematic reading skills and train our ability to read “beyond the facts” to identify textual layers and critically reflect on research questions, methods, arguments, and the position of the ethnographer in the course readings. The course ends with an exam essay aiming to combine such skills and concerns with newly acquired regional knowledge. 

Learning Outcome

Skills

  • Be able to critically and systematically engage ethnographic accounts of region-specific issues and developments through a focus on central concerns in the anthropology of East Asian cities.     

 

Knowledge

  • Be able to demonstrate an overview of the social, economic, and political circumstances underlying urbanization as well as in-depth awareness of some of its social consequences in one or several East Asian countries.

 

Competences

  • Be able to critically discuss ethnographic literature on urbanization and big-city life in East Asia, including an ability to identify research methods, suppositions, and central arguments in a selection of the academic literature.

BSc students and MSc students: 500 pages obligatory literature.

The teacher will publish 200-300 pages of supplementary literature.

Course literature will be available through Absalon.

Weekly lectures + Discussion-based seminars.
  • Category
  • Hours
  • Lectures
  • 42
  • Preparation
  • 100
  • Exam
  • 64
  • Total
  • 206
Oral
Continuous feedback during the course of the semester

Written feedback and comments from teacher on ongoing essay writing on the basis of students submitting draft version to teacher towards the end of the course (scheduled activity).

Essay topic- and exam-related discussions integrated into the lectures throughout the course.

Credit
7,5 ECTS
Type of assessment
Written assignment
Type of assessment details
One BA student: 21600-26400 keystrokes. For group responses, Min. 6,750 and Max. 8,250 extra keystrokes per extra group member.

One MA student: 27,000-33,000 keystrokes. For group responses, Min. 8,450 and Max. 10,300 extra keystrokes per extra group member.

For groups with both BA and MA students:
A MA and a BA student: 31,900-38,975 (BA: 14.175-17.325 KA: 17.725-21.650)
A MA and two BA students: 38,050 – 46,475 (BA: 11,700-14.300 KA: 14.650-17.875)
A MA and three BA students: 44,525-54,375 (BA: 10.475-12,800 MA: 13.100-15.975)
Two MA and one BA student: 41,000-50,050 (BA: 11,700-14.300 KA: 14.650-17.875)
Two MA and two BA students: 47,150-57,550 (BA: 10.475-12,800 MA: 13.100-15.975)
Three MA and one BA student: 49,775-60,725 (BA: 10.475-12,800 MA: 13.100-15.975)

Literature
MA students must include supplementary literature in the exam assignment. The supplementary literature is chosen by the student.

Information of level and contribution
Students must indicate on the first page of the assignment whether they are a BA or MA students. In the case of group assignments, the contribution of each individual student must be clearly marked in the assignment.
Aid
All aids allowed

Policy on the Use of Generative AI Software and Large Language Models in Exams

The Department of Anthropology allows the use of generative AI software and large language models (AI/LLMs), such as ChatGPT, in written exams, provided that the use of AI/LLMs is disclosed and specified (i.e., how it was used and for what purpose) in an appendix that does not count towards the page limit of the exam.

 

If AI/LLMs are used as source, the same requirements apply for using quotation marks and source referencing as with all other sources. Otherwise, it will be a case of plagiarism.

Marking scale
7-point grading scale
Censorship form
No external censorship
Re-exam

1st and 2nd re-exam: A new essay must be submitted. The new assignment must be submitted by the deadline for the re-exam.

Criteria for exam assesment

See learning outcome.