Anthropological Analysis of the Contemporary World
Code: 101249
ECTS Credits: 6
2025/2026
Degree |
Type |
Year |
Social and Cultural Anthropology |
OB |
3 |
Science, Technology and Humanities |
OT |
4 |
Teachers
- Jose Mansilla Lopez
- (External) Per determinar
Teaching groups languages
You can view this information at the end of this document.
Prerequisites
This course has no pre – requisites.
Objectives and Contextualisation
This unit presents the discipline of anthropology and focuses on contemporary social issues. It highlights sociocultural constructions and their plasticity, framing them within the context of a globalised world.The objective of the unit “Analysis of the Contemporary World” is to present the current debates within anthropology, focusing on the contemporary contexts of a global world. It aims to offer a critical approach to sociocultural issues and a reflection around anthropology as a discipline itself.
Competences
Social and Cultural Anthropology
- Act with ethical responsibility and respect for fundamental rights and duties, diversity and democratic values.
- Apprehending cultural diversity through ethnography and critically assessing ethnographic materials as knowledge of local contexts and as a proposal of theoretical models.
- Demonstrating they know and comprehend the epistemological and methodological debates in Anthropology and the main investigation techniques.
- Students must be capable of applying their knowledge to their work or vocation in a professional way and they should have building arguments and problem resolution skills within their area of study.
- Students must be capable of collecting and interpreting relevant data (usually within their area of study) in order to make statements that reflect social, scientific or ethical relevant issues.
- Take sex- or gender-based inequalities into consideration when operating within one's own area of knowledge.
- Use digital tools and critically interpret specific documentary sources.
- Using the discipline's ethnographic and theoretical corpus with analytical and synthesis skills.
Science, Technology and Humanities
- Act with ethical responsibility and respect for fundamental rights and duties, diversity and democratic values.
- Analyse the relationships between nature and culture using concepts from anthropology, philosophy and history.
- Assess the social, economic and environmental impact when acting in this field of knowledge.
- Construct discourse on scientific and technical knowledge using the linguistic resources of argument.
- Explain the basic concepts related to life, its origin and evolution, especially those referring to health and illness throughout history.
- Make critical use of digital tools and interpret specific documentary sources.
- Relate terrestrial dynamics and the variable of time in the terrestrial, atmospheric and climatic processes, and identify the problems generated by use of natural resources on the part of humans.
- Students must be capable of collecting and interpreting relevant data (usually within their area of study) in order to make statements that reflect social, scientific or ethical relevant issues.
- Students must be capable of communicating information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialised and non-specialised audiences.
- Students must have and understand knowledge of an area of study built on the basis of general secondary education, and while it relies on some advanced textbooks it also includes some aspects coming from the forefront of its field of study.
- Take sex- or gender-based inequalities into consideration when operating within one's own area of knowledge.
- Work collaboratively in teams.
Learning Outcomes
- Analyse in theoretical terms examples of cultural diversity in the fields of education, gender and systems of inclusion-exclusion.
- Analysing a contemporary fact from an anthropological perspective.
- Apply the basic concepts of social and cultural anthropology in order to understand the relationships between different societies and cultures.
- Applying the basic concepts of Social and Cultural Anthropology to the understanding of relationships between various societies and cultures.
- Applying the knowledge of cultural variability and its genesis to avoid ethnocentric projections.
- Apprehending cultural diversity through ethnography and critically assessing ethnographic materials as local context knowledge.
- Assessing critically the explicit and implicit theoretical models in the ethnographic materials.
- Carry out ethical use of the information especially when it is of a personal nature.
- Carry out group activities.
- Conduct sound, relevant information searches in specialist media, the internet and population databases.
- Critically analyse data from anthropological research and reports.
- Critically assess the explicit and implicit theoretical models in ethnographic materials.
- Distinguish between the theoretical concepts of anthropology and indigenous concepts.
- Distinguishing between the theoretical concepts of Anthropology and the indigenous concepts.
- Enumerating theories about human species and relating them with the production of society and culture.
- Establish the historical connection between ethnographic knowledge and theoretical development.
- Establishing historical connection between ethnographic and theoretical development.
- Explain developments in the disciplines and the current interdisciplinary trends of criticism of the Cartesian nature-culture dichotomy.
- Identify social and cultural variability through ethnographic texts and audiovisual sources.
- Identify the current trends toward interdisciplinarity shared by anthropology and the related social disciplines in the corresponding field.
- Identify the principal forms of sex- or gender-based inequality and discrimination present in society.
- Identify the recent developments in the disciplines and the linking of anthropological theory to the related social disciplines in its historical development and the current trends toward interdisciplinarity.
- Identify the various processes by which human populations interact with their habitat.
- Identifying the main and secondary ideas and expressing them with linguistic correctness.
- Identifying the sociocultural variability through ethnographic texts and audiovisual resources.
- Identifying the transcultural variability of economic, kinship, political, symbolic and cognitive, educational and gender systems as well as their corresponding anthropological theory.
- Integrate acquired knowledge of human biocultural diversity, its origin and its expression, with the aim of making judgements and providing society with criteria that are appropriate, scientific and ethical, and not discriminatory, sexist or racist.
- Interpreting the cultural diversity through ethnography.
- Interpreting today's main events from physical, economic, social and cultural diversity.
- Know and evaluate the methodological debates in social and cultural anthropology.
- Know and understand the impact of culture on the various institutional systems of environmental intervention.
- Know and understand the various processes of intercultural relations.
- Knowing and assessing the methodological debate of social and cultural Anthropology.
- Knowing and assessing the various processes of intercultural relationship.
- Learn cultural diversity through ethnography and critically assess ethnographic materials as knowledge of local contexts.
- Present problems relating to the topics covered, especially those associated with major social issues, orally and in writing.
- Present the results of work in narrative form in accordance with the critical canons of the discipline and taking into account the different audiences addressed.
- Produce materials on the relationships between human population and environment that could have a critical impact on conceptions of politics and common sense in their respective fields.
- Recognise the cultural nature of conceptions of nature and society.
- Recognise the importance of gender, as another social and cultural factor, in dietary behaviour and in its differential impact on health.
- Summarising acquired knowledge about the origin and transformations experienced in its several fields of study.
- Summarising acquired knowledge about the origin and transformations experienced in the several fields of anthropology.
- Summarising characteristics of a written text according to its communicative purposes.
- Summarizing the acquired knowledge about the relationship between nature, culture and society.
- Summarizing the characteristics of a written text in accordance to its communicative purposes.
- Take part in debates on historical and present-day events, respecting the opinions of the other participants.
- Theoretically analysing ethnographic examples of cultural diversity in the fields of education, gender and inclusion-exclusion systems.
- Use the ethnographic corpus in cultural criticism.
- Using the ethnographic corpus in the cultural critique.
- Weigh up the impact of any long- or short-term difficulty, harm or discrimination that could be caused to certain persons or groups by the actions or projects.
Content
-
Anthropology as a science today: contemporaneity, postmodernity, globalization, and civilization.
-
Tourism and the city in a global context.
-
Inequality and dispossession in the contemporary world.
-
Circulation, goods, and borders.
-
Rise of extremism and totalitarian movements.
-
Memory, origins, and states.
Activities and Methodology
Title |
Hours |
ECTS |
Learning Outcomes |
Type: Directed |
|
|
|
Discussions in the class group |
17
|
0.68 |
2, 5, 4, 6, 7, 34, 26, 29, 49
|
Master classes |
20
|
0.8 |
47, 2, 5, 4, 6, 7, 33, 34, 14, 17, 25, 26, 29, 28, 45, 42, 49
|
Viewing and discussion of documentaries and films. |
10
|
0.4 |
2, 5, 33, 34, 14, 25, 29
|
Type: Supervised |
|
|
|
Individual or team work |
20
|
0.8 |
2, 5, 4, 7, 34, 14, 17, 25, 26, 29, 45, 42, 49
|
Tutorials - preparation for written work |
5
|
0.2 |
2, 5, 4, 7, 34, 14, 17, 25, 29, 45, 49
|
Type: Autonomous |
|
|
|
Comprehensive reading and discussion of texts |
20
|
0.8 |
2, 4, 7, 17, 29, 45
|
Personal study |
25
|
1 |
47, 2, 5, 4, 7, 17, 25, 45, 49
|
Lectures, open debates, promotion of student participation, and viewing of audiovisual materials. All of these will be aimed at the preparation of individual and group assignments, as well as autonomous activities, personal study, and reading and understanding of texts.
The schedule and day of tutorials will be announced during the first days of class.
Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.
Assessment
Continous Assessment Activities
Title |
Weighting |
Hours |
ECTS |
Learning Outcomes |
Class participation |
10% |
30
|
1.2 |
11, 1, 35, 12, 30, 15, 18, 37, 36, 22, 26, 24, 21, 45, 44
|
Essay |
25% |
1
|
0.04 |
11, 47, 2, 5, 4, 3, 6, 35, 7, 12, 33, 34, 14, 15, 17, 37, 36, 8, 25, 26, 24, 21, 29, 28, 46, 38, 43, 45, 44, 41, 42, 49, 48, 50
|
Exam |
40% |
1
|
0.04 |
47, 2, 5, 4, 6, 7, 33, 30, 34, 32, 31, 14, 13, 17, 16, 18, 8, 22, 23, 25, 19, 26, 21, 20, 29, 28, 39, 45, 42, 49, 50
|
Oral presentation |
25% |
1
|
0.04 |
47, 1, 2, 5, 4, 6, 33, 9, 14, 10, 8, 25, 21, 27, 40, 49, 50
|
The assessment will mainly be continuous and will be divided as follows:
- Final exam, 40%
- Group presentations (25%) on topics to be chosen from the various course blocks or field trips.
- Individual essay-style assignments (25%) on topics to be chosen from the various course blocks.
- Participation, attendance, and in-class comments (10%)
-
The exam is the only part that must be passed (minimum grade of 5) in order to average it with the rest. At the class’s suggestion, the theoretical part can be divided into two exams (20% each). To calculate the average, a minimum grade of 4 must be obtained in both parts.
Single Assessment
The single assessment will be based solely on a final exam (50%), an individual essay-style assignment (25%), and a review of a book related to anthropology, to be agreed upon with the instructor (25%).
Reassessment
The reassessment will consist of an exam covering the failed part(s).
Plagiarism in Assignments or Exams
The current regulations will apply: Article 116. Assessment Results (Article modified by the Governing Council Agreement of March 19, 2015):
If a student commits any irregularity that may significantly alter the grade of an assessment activity, that activity will be graded with a 0, regardless of any disciplinary action that may follow. If multiple irregularities occur in the assessment activities of a single subject, the final grade for that subject will be 0.
Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI):
Restricted use: For this course, the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies is permitted exclusively for support tasks, such as literature or information searches, text corrections, or translations. The student must clearly identify which parts were generated using such technology, specify the tools used, and include a critical reflection on how these tools influenced both the process and the final result of the activity. Lack of transparency in the use of AI in this evaluable activity will be considered a breach of academic integrity and may result in partial or total penalization of the activity’s grade, or more serious sanctions in severe cases.
Bibliography
Cañada, Ernest y Murray, Ivan (2024). El malestar en la turistificación. Pensamiento critico para una transformación del turismo. Ed. Icària.
Delpierre, Alizée (2025). Servir a los ricos. Una mirada crítica a la intimidad de la élite social y econòmica. Península Ed.
Harvey, David (2004). El nuevo imperialismo. Editorial Akal.
Harvey, David (2008). El derecho a la Ciudad. New Left Review, 53.
Milano, Claudio y Mansilla, Jose (2018). Ciudad de vacaciones. Conflictos urbanos en espacios turísticos. Ed. Pol·len.
Wacquant, Loïc (2008). Castigar a los pobres. El gobierno neoliberal de la inseguridad social. Ed. Gedhisa.
Groups and Languages
Please note that this information is provisional until 30 November 2025. You can check it through this link. To consult the language you will need to enter the CODE of the subject.
Name |
Group |
Language |
Semester |
Turn |
(PAUL) Classroom practices |
1 |
Spanish |
second semester |
morning-mixed |
(TE) Theory |
1 |
Spanish |
second semester |
morning-mixed |