During its earliest years, anthropology was complicit with European and American colonialism and racial caste system. Through books like Linda Tuhiwai Smith's book Decolonizing Methodology, tribal IRBs, and open letters, Indigenous people and tribal governments make clear how they want scientists to conduct research with their communities. Non-Indigenous scholars of color have also written books about how scholarship can empower marginalize people and avoid perpetuating injustice. How does anthropology reckon with its past ties with scientific racism colonialism? How do we responsibly use scholarship from the past while working toward decolonization and anti-racism? This class will compare work by Indigenous people and people of color calling for decolonization and anti-racism, studies done using decolonizing methodologies, and widely read works of anthropology throughout the discipline's history.
Course Attributes: EN S; AS LCD; AS SSC
