Course Overview
This is an anthropology course in which a decolonial ethnographic methodology frames our approach to community-based learning. We will learn about, from, and with the Spartanburg community, especially the Northside, through course readings, films, discussions, guest speakers, participant observation in city events, and service-learning at a series of community-based organizations. We will consider the social, environmental, and economic histories and contemporary realities across the city’s landscape, which will invite us to think through what sustainability means and looks like across Spartanburg’s neighborhoods. Community-based learning will allow us to learn about the ways community, change, equity, and sustainability are envisioned by city residents as well as by local organizations. Our work this semester will position us to identify an organization or initiative we will partner with during the spring semester (ANTH 405) to carry out a community-based learning project.
This course serves to prepare students to take on a community-based learning project in the city of Spartanburg. In order to prepare students for this project, we will engage in a series of assignments that will give students the necessary learning opportunities to:
· establish connections with local community members and organizations.
· identify community assets, needs, and interests.
· develop community organizing and leadership skills.
· interrogate our positionalities and what it means to be a volunteer versus an advocate versus an ally.
· evaluate current community programming and brainstorm potential ways we can contribute to efforts that seek to sustain, build upon, improve, and/or change existing initiatives.
- Teacher: Alysa Handelsman