58124 Local Transformations

Handbook description

The way we think about relationships between the individual, local community life and the wider social order is addressed in this subject through investigation of the intersections between time, place and agency. Students investigate issues such as how the historical legacies of locality are connected to present possibilities and future hopes, how localities are produced in relation to each other in cross-national and trans-local interactions, and how local capacity or agency is linked to local, national and transnational power hierarchies, whether in terms of dominance or marginality.

An integrated application of historical, political and sociological approaches to these questions points to the importance of archival research and capacity to undertake on-the-ground ethnographies. Students engage a range of theoretical approaches and integrate them with archival and ethnographic methods, developing communication skills to present resulting insights. The subject draws on case studies at the local level in Australian society, including indigenous contexts or environmental concerns, to develop students' capacity to apply historical, sociological and political theory to experiences of place, agency and change.

Subject objectives/outcomes

At the completion of this subject, students are expected to be able to:

1. explain locality and the relationship between individuals, community life and the broader social process;
2. apply the methodological approaches to studies of community;
3. explain national and trans national power;
4. apply varied theoretical and disciplinary approaches to these questions.

Contribution to graduate profile

This subject makes a major contribution to the students' capacity to applying knowledge and skills and inquire critically and a minor contribution to their capacity to work collaboratively.

Teaching and learning strategies

This subject seeks to actively engage and immerse students in field work research through structured independent group projects. Lectures will cover different disciplinary approaches, theoretical perspectives and provide case studies of applied research.

Content

• Defining locality: humanities and social science approaches to defining, discovering and describing community
• Anthropologies and community: in small and large scale societies
• Locality and history: change and tradition
• Sociologies of communities: class, culture and gender
• Politics and the local: power and community
• Research methods: archival and ethnography
• Application of theory: reporting research

Assessment

Assessment item 1: Research Journal

Assessment item 2: Panel Presentation

Assessment item 3: Major Project and Presentation

Minimum requirements

Attendance is important in this subject because it is based on a collaborative approach which involves essential workshopping and interchange of ideas with other students and the tutor. An attendance roll will be taken at each class. Where possible, students should advise the tutor in a timely manner if they are unable to attend.

Students who fail to attend 85% of classes may be refused to have their final assessment item assessed (see Rule 3.8).

Recommended text(s)

Readings will be in electronic form through the subject site on UTS Online. You will need to access your readings on a weekly basis either by downloading and printing or accessing online. You will need to ensure you develop a system to organise your readings and notes.

Indicative references

Appadurai, A. c1996, Modernity at Large: Cultural dimensions of globalisation, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, Minn.

Allen, J., Massey, D., & Pryke, M. (eds) 1999, Unsettling cities, Routledge, New York.

Anderson, K. c2007, Race and the crisis of humanism, Routledge, London.

Anderson, K. & Gale, F. (eds) 1992, Inventing Places: Studies in Cultural Geography, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne.

Bonyhady, T. & Griffiths, T. (eds) 2002, Words For Country: Landscape and Language in Australia, UNSW Press, Sydney.

Byrne, D. 2003, 'Nervous Landscapes: Race and Space in Australia'', Journal of Social Archaeology, vol 3, no 2, pp169-193.

Frisch, M. 1990, A Shared Authority. Essays on the Craft and Meaning of oral and public history, State University of New York Press, Albany.

Goodall, H. & Flick, K. 1994, 'History and Interactive multimedia: Hi-tech gimmick or a new form for community history?', Public History Review, vol 3, pp. 2-17.

Harvey, D. 1989, The condition of postmodernity: an enquiry into the origins of cultural change, Cambridge, Mass., Blackwell, Oxford, England.

Hayden, D. 1995, The Power of Place: urban landscapes as public history, MIT Press, Cambridge Mass.

Massey, D. 1994, Space, place and gender, Cambridge Polity.

Nugent, M. 2005, Botany Bay. Where Histories Meet, Allen & Unwin, Sydney.

Perks, R. & Thomson, A. (eds) 1998, The Oral History Reader, Routledge, London.

Darian-Smith, K. & Hamilton, P. (eds) 1994, History and Memory in Twentieth-Century Australia, Oxford University Press, Melbourne.

Williamson, A & DeSouza, R. 2007, Researching with Communities: Grounded perspectives on engaging communities in research, Muddy Creek Press, Auckland and London.