AN363 Half Unit
Borders and Boundaries: Ethnographic Approaches
This information is for the 2025/26 session.
Course Convenor
Prof Mathijs Pelkmans
Availability
This course is available on the BA in Anthropology and Law, BA in Social Anthropology, BSc in Social Anthropology, Erasmus Reciprocal Programme of Study, Exchange Programme for Students from University of California, Berkeley, Exchange Programme for Students in Anthropology (Cape Town), Exchange Programme for Students in Anthropology (Fudan) and Exchange Programme for Students in Anthropology (Tokyo). This course is freely available as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit. It does not require permission. This course is freely available to General Course students. It does not require permission.
Requisites
Mutually exclusive courses:
This course cannot be taken with AN245 at any time on the same degree programme.
Course content
How do territorial borders influence human behaviour and thinking, and how, in turn, do people create, manage, and manipulate such borders? These questions have become pressing with the intensification and politicisation of global interconnectedness. While a few decades ago the tearing down of the Berlin Wall seemed to herald a border-less world, todays the loudest politicians promise to create "huge, great, great, beautiful walls." This course studies the numerous tensions accompanying global interconnectedness. Why is it so difficult to make borders impermeable? How do smuggling networks operate? What does the world look like from the perspective of undocumented migrants? What are the effects of new border fortification technologies? What is it like to live in a gated community? Are people boundary-drawing creatures? Why do borders play a central role in visions of utopia? Why is it silly yet productive to ask: where is the border between Europe and Asia? These and other questions will be discussed by situating ourselves ethnographically in the borderlands, potentially making us realise that "the frontier is all around us."
Teaching
10 hours of lectures and 10 hours of classes in the Autumn Term.
This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn Term.
Formative assessment
Essay (1500 words)
Students are expected to prepare discussion materials for presentation in the classes, and will have the opportunity to submit one formative essay of up to 1500 words during the course.
Students will be informed of their formative submission deadline by email by the end of Week 3 of term.
Indicative reading
- Agier, M. (2018). The jungle: Calais's camps and migrants;
- Andersson, R. (2014). Illegality, Inc.: Clandestine migration and the business of bordering Europe;
- Berdahl, D. (1999). Where the world ended: Re-unification and identity in the German borderland;
- De León, J. (2015) The land of open graves: Living and dying on the migrant trail.
- Hastings, D., and T. Wilson (1999). Borders: Frontiers of identity, nation and state;
- Khosravi, S. (2010). 'Illegal' traveller: an auto-ethnography of borders;
- Low, S. (2004). Behind the gates: Life, security, and the pursuit of happiness in fortress America;
- Pelkmans, M. (2006). Defending the border: identity, religion, and modernity in the Republic of Georgia;
- Reeves, M. (2014). Border work: spatial lives of the state in rural Central Asia.
Assessment
Essay (100%, 3000 words) in Winter Term Week 1
Key facts
Department: Anthropology
Course Study Period: Autumn Term
Unit value: Half unit
FHEQ Level: Level 6
CEFR Level: Null
Total students 2024/25: Unavailable
Average class size 2024/25: Unavailable
Capped 2024/25: NoCourse selection videos
Some departments have produced short videos to introduce their courses. Please refer to the course selection videos index page for further information.
Personal development skills
- Self-management
- Application of information skills
- Communication