ASS329 - Anthropology of Crime and Violence

Unit details

Note: You are seeing the 2023 view of this unit information. These details may no longer be current. [Go to the current version]
Year:

2023 unit information

Enrolment modes:

Trimester 1: Burwood (Melbourne), Waurn Ponds (Geelong), Online, CBD*

Credit point(s):1
EFTSL value:0.125
Unit Chair:Trimester 1: Gillian Tan
Prerequisite:

Nil

Corequisite:Nil
Incompatible with: ASS229
Typical study commitment:

Students will on average spend 150-hours over the teaching period undertaking the teaching, learning and assessment activities for this unit.

Scheduled learning activities - campus:

 1 x 1-hour class per week, 1 x 1-hour seminar per week

Scheduled learning activities - online:

1 x 1-hour class per week (recordings provided), 1 x 1-hour online seminar per week

Note:

*CBD refers to the National Indigenous Knowledges, Education, Research and Innovation (NIKERI) Institute; Community Based Delivery

Content

Violence and crime, their forms and controls, are fundamental to human social existence and are central to theories regarding the nature of humanity, society and the state. The anthropology of crime and violence addresses these points from a comparative cross-cultural perspective. Emphasis is given to the situational nature of violence and human conflict with case studies of warfare, state-based violence, genocide and ethnic conflict.

A key proposition in this unit is that attempts to define human violence as an aspect of a transcendental human nature -- an element of humanity as a whole -- tend to conflate specific instances with laboratory-like definitions. Instead, the particular social, cultural and historical situations must be grasped in all their complexity. Attention is also given to different forms of social collectives including the modern bureaucratic State.

ULO These are the Learning Outcomes (ULO) for this unit. At the completion of this unit, successful students can: Deakin Graduate Learning Outcomes
ULO1

Articulate specific instances of crime and violence from an anthropological perspective, and compare these with other approaches in the social sciences

GLO1: Discipline-specific knowledge and capabilities

ULO2

Judge the various factors that may underlie human violence in Western and non-Western contexts

GLO4: Critical thinking

ULO3

Assess different forms of violence as well as different systems of social collectives, with a critical focus on the State

GLO4: Critical thinking

GLO5: Problem Solving

ULO4

Conduct comparative analysis based on specific examples of violence in various cultural and social contexts

GLO2: Communication

GLO6: Self-management

Assessment

Assessment Description Student output Grading and weighting
(% total mark for unit)
Indicative due week
Assessment 1 - Seminar/
Online exercises
800 words
or equivalent
20% Ongoing
Assessment 2 - Research and Writing Exercise 800 words
or equivalent
20% Week 3
Assessment 3 - Essay 2400 words
or equivalent
60% Week 11

The assessment due weeks provided may change. The Unit Chair will clarify the exact assessment requirements, including the due date, at the start of the teaching period.

Learning Resource

The texts and reading list for the unit can be found on the University Library via the link ASS329
Note: Select the relevant trimester reading list. Please note that a future teaching period's reading list may not be available until a month prior to the start of that teaching period so you may wish to use the relevant trimester's prior year reading list as a guide only.

Unit Fee Information

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