ANTHR 4435 - [Postcolonial Science]

(crosslisted)
(also BSOC 4351, STS 4351)(GB) (CA-AS)

Fall. 4 credits.

Next offered 2014-2015. Co-meets with ANTHR 7435.

S. Langwick.

This course examines science and technology in so-called “non-Western” countries as well as the ways that science and technology are shaping new “transnational” or “global” relations. We will explore the post-colonial as a dynamic space that both plays off of and refigures the complicated dynamics of colonialism. The postcolonial challenges the dichotomies through which colonial power moved: western/indigenous, white/black, modern/traditional, global/local, developed/underdeveloped, and science/non-science. At the same time, it confronts the ways in which colonial histories are still embodied in institutions, identities, environments, and landscapes. Techno-scientific knowledge and practice have both enacted colonial divisions and been called on in post-colonial struggles. How them might we understand the work of scientific knowledge and practice in the kinds of hegemonies and struggles that shape our world today? We will explore this question by examining the way that technoscience is performed-by scientists, development workers, activists, government officials, and others. The class will pay particular attention to the located processes through which claims to the universal or global emerge. In addition by considering controversies over the environment, medicine, and indigenous knowledge, we will consider the effects of such claims.