DSOC 2860 - Sociology of Development in Native America

Fall. 3 credits.

Enrollment limited to: CPEP students. Offered in Auburn. The course is part of the CPEP program.

A. Curley.

The project of development is monumental and contested. It involves radical transformation of people and places that improve and impoverish communities. It involves profound cultural and social change and, for indigenous people, is perhaps the greatest question we face today. Given its implications, indigenous people in North America are overshadowed in the larger debates about capitalism, nationalism, globalization and climate change. This course is intended to change this neglect. We will review the scholarship on economic development in Native North America and consider its implications for tribal people. We will contextualize these debates within larger conversations about development and its discontents. This upper level undergraduate course will put into conversation the field of American Indian economic development with the sociology of development and other critical perspectives.

Outcome 1: Students will be able to discuss central debates about development theory.

Outcome 2: Students will be able to discuss literature on American Indian modernization.

Outcome 3: Students will be able to talk about “Nation Building” in tribal communities.

Outcome 4: Students will be able to consider new and alternative perspectives to sovereignty and consider its implications to the question of development.

Outcome 5: Students will be able to develop and present independent presentation on development effort in a Native community and analyze this effort from the materials in the course.