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2700:2025:12:tut [2025/05/19 16:20] – created Ryan Schram (admin)2700:2025:12:tut [2025/05/19 16:45] (current) – Ryan Schram (admin)
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-====== Objects that have agency ======+====== Objects that have agency: A tutorial discussion ======
  
-===== Objects that have agency =====+===== Objects that have agency: A tutorial discussion =====
  
 Ryan Schram\\ Ryan Schram\\
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 Week of May 19, 2025 (Week 12) Week of May 19, 2025 (Week 12)
  
-Slides available at https://anthro.rschram.org/2700/2025/12+Slides available at https://anthro.rschram.org/2700/2025/12/tut
  
 **Main reading:** Schnitzler (2016b) **Main reading:** Schnitzler (2016b)
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 All of this is to say that it is actually worth it to fill out every USS for every class. All of this is to say that it is actually worth it to fill out every USS for every class.
 +
 +
 +
 +===== The bourgeois public sphere as an ideal and as a prescription =====
 +
 +Habermas seeks to recover a cultural form from the European bourgeoisie as a basis for a normative theory of democracy. 
 +
 +His work has been criticized in many ways. Social scientists and theorists also question whether he tells the full story of the bourgeois public sphere, going beyond some of his critics.
 +
 +* The 18th century concept of a singular public sphere was not only an ideal, but a model that European powers exported to colonized peoples and a standard by which they justified their colonial rule.
 +
 +  * It is the duty of a paternalistic colonial state to train people to be good public citizens.
 +  * If you want freedom then you have to show that you can govern yourselves rationally.
 +
 +* Exporting the ideal of a public sphere ultimately leads to creating a divided society.
 +  
 +  * A select few are drawn into a liberal system through education and integration into the formal economy
 +  * The vast majority are governed as members of various quantifiable populations whose health and welfare is measured by official statistics
 +  * The elites inherit the colonial order. In the postcolonial nation, an elite participates in liberal politics in "civil society" while everyone else participates in an invisible form of politics in "political society"---a politics of patronage and clientship, particularism, boundaries, and autonomy, rather than liberation, rights, freedom, and equality (Chatterjee 1998, 2011).
 +
 +
  
  
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 * What position does she take with respect to the major perspectives we've encountered?  * What position does she take with respect to the major perspectives we've encountered? 
-  - Symbolic anthropology and methodological holism +  * Symbolic anthropology and methodological holism 
-  - Marxist perspectives on historical change as a dialectic +  * Marxist perspectives on historical change as a dialectic 
-  - Foucault's theories of subjectivation through power relations, or through care of the self  +  * Foucault's theories of subjectivation through power relations, or through care of the self  
-  - Bourdieusian approaches to society as a game, and social life as an embodied practice +  * Bourdieusian approaches to society as a game, and social life as an embodied practice 
-  - A relational ontology for social analysis in which knowledge is performative and seeing is doing+  * A relational ontology for social analysis in which knowledge is performative and seeing is doing
  
 * Consider her discussion of these topics and ideas * Consider her discussion of these topics and ideas
-  - Moral reform and social control of working classes +  * The role of machines in Marx's theory of capitalism (p. 114) 
-  - "Metrology" in public administration +  * Moral reform and social control of working classes (pp. 115--116, 121) 
-  - Corporatization of social services+  * "Metrology" in public administration (p. 138) 
 +  * Corporatization of social services (pp. 139--140)
  
 ==== Small groups are micropublics ==== ==== Small groups are micropublics ====
  
-1. Form a small group of 4--5 people. +* Form a small group of 4--5 people. 
-  - Introduce yourselves and check in. +  * Introduce yourselves and check in. 
-  - At least one person should be the scribe and at least one person should be the reporter.+  * At least one person should be the scribe and at least one person should be the reporter. 
 + 
 +* Discuss your general impressions of Schnitzler and share what you know of her work. 
 +  * Does she remind you of anyone? Is her work similar to other work you know? 
 +  * What kind of anthropologist is she? How would you characterize her approach or her orientation. 
 + 
 +* Formulate a thesis statement for an essay on Schnitzler. 
 +  * A thesis statement is an answer to an open question, for instance one of the three open questions for the second essay. 
 +  * A thesis statement is debatable because it answers a question with more than one possible answer; it's not just a description or a factual statement. 
 + 
 + 
 + 
 +===== References ===== 
 + 
 +Chatterjee, Partha. 1998. “Community in the East.” //Economic and Political Weekly// 33 (6): 277–82. 
 + 
 +———. 2011. “Lineages of Political Society.” In //Lineages of Political Society: Studies in Postcolonial Democracy//, 1–26. New York: Columbia University Press. 
 + 
 +Schnitzler, Antina von. 2016a. “Measuring Life: Living Prepaid and the Politics of Numbers after Apartheid.” In //Democracy’s Infrastructure: Techno-Politics and Protest after Apartheid//, 132–67. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400882991-006.
  
-2. Discuss your general impressions of Schnitzler and share what you know of her work.  +———. 2016b. “The Making of a Techno-Political Device.” In //Democracy’s Infrastructure: Techno-Politics and Protest after Apartheid//, 105–31. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400882991-005.
-  - Does she remind you of anyone? Is her work similar to other work you know? +
-  - What kind of anthropologist is she? How would you characterize her approach or her orientation.+
  
-3. Formulate a thesis statement for an essay on Schnitzler.  
-  - A thesis statement is an answer to an open question, for instance one of the three open questions for the second essay.  
-  - A thesis statement is debatable because it answers a question with more than one possible answer; it's not just a description or a factual statement. 
  
  
2700/2025/12/tut.1747696829.txt.gz · Last modified: 2025/05/19 16:20 by Ryan Schram (admin)