Open AccessDISCIPLINARY ADAPTATION AND UNDERGRADUATE DESIRE: Anthropology and Global Development Studies in the Liberal Arts Curriculum
Author(s) -
HANDLER RICHARD
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
cultural anthropology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.669
H-Index - 75
eISSN - 1548-1360
pISSN - 0886-7356
DOI - 10.1111/cuan.12000
Subject(s) - discipline , sketch , liberal arts education , bureaucracy , curriculum , sociology , adaptation (eye) , pedagogy , curriculum development , engineering ethics , higher education , social science , political science , psychology , neuroscience , law , algorithm , politics , computer science , engineering
Like most disciplinary scholars, anthropologists have been reluctant to reorganize their undergraduate programs to speak directly to student concerns. Yet, students are oriented, both intellectually and proto‐professionally, to issues like global development, about which anthropologists have much to teach. This article examines student assumptions about development and about the interdisciplinary knowledge they think they need to understand it. I outline a critical pedagogy to respond to student ideas about development. I then sketch the cultural assumptions and bureaucratic structures that work to marginalize interdisciplinary programs. I conclude by suggesting ways anthropologists could adapt their undergraduate programs to “colonize” new curricular territories frequently defined in interdisciplinary terms.