Anthropology 316SP - Space, Place, and Mobility

What makes a home feel like home? What makes a neighborhood feel alive and vibrant? Architects and urban planners develop elaborate designs meant for specific kinds of human uses, and yet we find that people often use spaces for purposes quite different from those that planners intended. In this course, we will explore the ways in which people dwell in the abstract spaces of planners, turning them into inhabited places. We will also explore the ways that people navigate through and between these spaces that have been compartmentalized into politically and socially bounded units. A variety of theoretical perspectives will be applied in diverse cultural cases to better understand the ways in which peoples inhabit the world.

Prereq: 4 credits in Anthropology department.