Topic for Spring 2025: Anthropology of Migrants and Refugees
PREREQUISITES: Junior standing or at least two courses in anthropology or consent of instructor This course focuses on social groups of migrants, immigrants, and refugees who voluntarily or involuntarily leave their country and cultures of origin, while considering the processes of migration through the lens of anthropology. It examines how migrants and refugees experience displacement and its impact on core concepts of culture such as enculturation, assimilation, adaptation, acculturation, and notions of cultural identity and citizenship. It also examines the phenomenon of migration as a demographic dimension of globalization—high levels of movement of peoples across national boundaries, an increase in the number of countries affected by migrants and refugees, and the increase in number of multiethnic and multicultural societies.