Dr Fenella Cannell

This course is available on the MRes/PhD in Anthropology, MSc in Anthropology and Development, MSc in Social Anthropology and MSc in Social Anthropology (Religion in the Contemporary World). This course is not available as an outside option to students on other programmes.

Students will normally be attending a Masters programme in anthropology at LSE. External students are encouraged to contact the course teacher early in term, so as to request any additional guidance on assessment styles or additional reading assignments that may be necessary or helpful. 

This course offers the chance to look at the ethnography of one country in more detail than is usual for regional courses. It considers topics taken from the ethnography of the lowland and highland Philippines, with a focus on exciting new high quality writing, drawing on the recent renaissance in Philippine Studies. The course will include works by expert non-Filipino ethnographers, and will also focus on the work of Filipino scholars whether resident in the Philippines or elsewhere. The course will be framed within the colonial, religious and social history of the archipelago, and will consider both new interpretations of Philippine history, and topics on contemporary social issues, as well as using classic works on the Philippines. Teaching each week will normally be organised around the reading of one outstanding ethnography, allowing students to look closely at particular cases; in some years, particular key ethnographies may be used to link more than one topic. Topics in any year are likely to be drawn from the following list (although obviously only ten topics can be offered in one year) ; Migration and Overseas Filipino Workers,  transnational marriage, and the Philippine diaspora ; New religious movements: Philippine colonialism and the processes of conversion: Healing, spirit possession, midwifery and local medicine: The contemporary Catholic Church; Ecology, landscape and environmental politics: Kinship and its transformations; Gender, Philippine queer theory and Philippine cross-dressing practices: Ritual, drama and local performance traditions: Philippine architecture and material culture.: Philippine cinema: Colonial politics, and its legacies: indigenous and minority rights  and issues of self-representation: Magic, sorcery and "anitismo"; Tourism, symbolic economies and the impact of international capitalism. Post-colonialism;the Duterte period and authoritarianism.

LSE is currently evaluating the use of edit tracking tools for AI-resilient assessment. This course might use edit tracking tools for assessments.

10 hours of lectures and 15 hours of seminars in the Winter Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Winter Term.

Students will be asked to prepare two or three article-length readings for each seminar, and to bring any questions arising from the lecture. 

Essay (1500 words).

Students will be encouraged to think ahead to their eventual rationale for the summative work as part of their formative assessment.

• Fenella Cannell, Power and Intimacy in the Christian Philippines;
• Sally-Ann Ness, Where Asia Smiles;
• Heather L Claussen, Unconventional Sisterhood;
• M F Manalansan, Global Divas: Filipino Gay Men in the Diaspora;
• Vicente Rafael, White Love and Other Events in Filipino History;
• Nicole Constable, Maid to order in Hong Kong;
• Albert Alejo, Generating Energies in Mount Apo.   
• Deirdre de la Cruz: Mother Figured
• Vicente Rafael: The Sovereign Trickster: death and laughter in the age of Duterte.
• Mina Roces: The Filipino Migration Experience: global agents of change 

Essay (100%, 3500 words).

Summative essay (max. 3,500 words) should demonstrate independent close reading and analytic understanding of relevant course materials, as well as the ability to contextualise key ideas and materials, and to synthesise and construct arguments.

Unless you have been given instructions to the contrary by your course teacher, the Anthropology Department expects that at least approximately 90% of the sources used in your summative essay will come from the course reading list, but you may optionally include approximately 10% from outside the reading list.