1000

This introductory course attempts to illustrate the role of anthropologists as social researchers, not only among indigenous peoples, but also in different spheres of social and cultural activity, and the instruments of analysis constructed by this discipline over time. It aims at familiarizing students with basic concepts and attitudes in anthropology and achieving critical development in this regard and regarding the task of seeking meanings. The program includes topics such as the object of study of this discipline, its specialties, the concept of culture, relationships with other disciplines, cultural diversity from an ecological-cultural perspective, ethnicity, cultural changes and globalization.

The purpose of this course is to introduce students in the management and understanding of qualitative research methods in social sciences. This objective covers a broad spectrum that ranges from reflecting on the characteristics of socio-cultural phenomena to the familiarization with the different tools that have been developed to study them. To this effect, the course not only presents the current epistemological debates in qualitative research, but also aims at developing in students, by means of practical exercises, the analytical, theoretic and practical skills necessary to elucidate research problems as well as methodological strategies that will enable them to tackle a specific topic of study.

This course discusses aspects of the contemporaneous human condition, framing them in the dual process of the general socio-cultural evolution of the species and the specificity of particular predominant cultural traditions today in the world. In order to do so, it goes from an evolutionary view to a socio-cultural view of the Homo Sapiens. The fundamental problem on which it is focused has to do with the validity of the postulate of the relativity of cultures within the current context of globalization, in order to elucidate the meaning of a mutual human condition based thereon, beyond the barriers of inter-culturality.

Although knowledge is supposed to be neutral and at the service of all humanity, the current reality shows that this has not been possible and, on the contrary, it is increasingly benefitting a more and more minor population, because other world views, ancestral legacies of millenary cultures, which have been ignored and underestimated by the so called western society until not too long ago, have begun to be known and recognized by the mass of the world population and their parameters and fundamentals are now being taken into account, in search for a different solution to the current state of humanity and the planet in general, which have been deteriorated for the most part. As a multilingual and pluricultural country, Colombia is a breeding ground to start this search for wisdom, natural practices and alternate cultures, born by its indigenous and Afro-Colombian societies that exist to this day on national territory, some of which even conserve their mother tongue and, thus, the essence of their thought. The course attempts to provide students with characteristics of knowledge (reflected in the cultural traditions and thought) of alternate peoples to western society (particularly indigenous and Afro-Colombian peoples), based on the work of pioneer researchers (anthropologists and other professionals) interested in this type of knowledge, and its comparison with so-called western through, considering the specificities in each case of the peoples analyzed.

In this course, the term "civilization" refers to how certain notions have been conceptual pillars that have legitimated the extermination of other human beings. The argument to be discussed during this course is that "civilization," and the values and ideals it claims are not an antidote against extreme violence but rather that this civilization rests, conceptually and literally speaking, "on mountains of bodies." The course explores the way events of such magnitude have been "engraved" in in the context of different historic narratives. This is all highly relevant if you would like to think not only of the contemporaneous world in general, as a present that is the continuity of the past, but rather, as the typically Colombian present.      

This course is about the history of our way of looking at nature, showing us that it is not only the product of certain biogeographical conditions, but rather a legacy of human history, that is to say, the result of a social process. It is meant for students to place "nature" as a cultural category that is not neutral nor universal. Western Culture has attempted to universalize its values, political systems and its way of acquiring knowledge, by imposing itself on the other societies inhabiting the planet. This attempt has led to the beliefs of Western Culture being considered neutral, objective and natural "truths" when, like in other cultures, these beliefs turn out to be myths, stories and notions that are typical of the particular history of Western Culture. Considering the above, the course mentions different societies that inhabited and inhabit very diverse regions of the planet and have produced very different cultural landscapes. The course will discuss two central queries: What have been the ideas and notions of nature and its relationship with society in modern western culture and how have they been transformed? How has the western notion of nature mediated in the knowledge and recognition of other "cosmologies", other ways of socially constructing the relationship with nature?

This course provides an analysis of the relationship between culture (understood in its voyages as an anthropological concept and a stage of social practice and interaction between individuals and groups) and visual imagination (understood in its dimension of images, texts, performances and different audiovisual expressions that transmit and generate meanings). In order to do so, it explores images whose use, dissemination and receipt in historic contexts and through different practices in power have played a role in registering, viewing, evoking and making the cultural difference a scientific object, producing multiple images of the other. The five topics of exploration that have been put forward are: (1) representations that, from the dawn of modern times and in the context of the European colonization of the New World that began in the 16th Century, registered, evoked and dehumanized non-western peoples through images and texts of the other "savage", "barbarian", "idolator" or "cannibal", (2) the ethnographic imagination that arose over time, rooted in the colonial experience and scientific practices that presented and disseminated meanings of factual, cultural and visual aspects, where some of the most outstanding examples are museums, world fairs and photographic expositions set up on exhibition stages of "primitive" cultures, (3) the naturalist documentary that opened a line of reflection regarding images and —epistemological, ethical and political—dilemmas to represent the other "native", (4) the power and value added of images in the reproduction of imaginaries centered on "third world women ", "natives" and "migrants" in the proposals of Trinh T. Minh-ha, Coco Fusco and Guillermo Gomez Pena, (5) images as transmitters and generators of new socio-cultural meanings through everyday experiences of use and/or appropriation of urban space and contemporaneous artistic expressions that feed and transform the global imagination in a context characterized by growing inequalities as well as old and new exclusions and violence against "migrants", "outcasts" and/or "second class citizens".   By the end of the semester, students are expected to have decanted arguments and ideas that will enable them to construct a critical approach to the relationship between visual imagination and culture, considering the historic, socio-cultural and scientific contexts of use, practice and dissemination.      

The temporal depth handled by archaeology places this academic discipline in a preferential location among historic and social sciences to tackle the biological, social and cultural development of the human race, which are its main concern. This course attempts to familiarize students with the fundamental aspects of current archeological theory and practice based on the critical reading of the history of western thought regarding the past. The main objective is to provide the theoretic bases of the discipline and situate them in the historic context, as well as introduce some of the principal debates, tendencies and current problems. In addition, the course provides an introduction to the main field research methods and techniques in archaeology and the role of archeologists in the creation and handling of collections and exhibitions in museums. Last but not least, it covers the ethical aspects of the different spheres of professional activity in archaeology. The theoretic-methodological training of this course includes a field practice and a guided tour of one of the city’s archeological museums. In order to complement the practical aspects of this training, the University provides opportunities for field and laboratory practice in research projects under the responsibility of the department’s researchers.

The purpose of this course is to provide students with a series of basic concepts in the field of human evolution from an anthropological standpoint. The first part reviews the main aspects regarding the topic of biological evolution and the second, from a biocultural viewpoint, analyzes the processes of human biological and cultural evolution in an integrated manner. The third part of the course is dedicated to discussing evolutionary aspects of human beings at present and generating an opportunity for reflection and discussion regarding the future of humanity and the role we play in the process with our decisions.

 This course provides the basic concepts of Biological Anthropology: definition, history and scope of the discipline. The first part reviews aspects regarding the topic of biological evolution, which are essential for the formulation of evolutionary theories. The second, with a biocultural perspective, analyzes the processes of biological and cultural evolution, emphasizing certain events from the evolutionary process that have marked the development of humanity. It necessarily mentions concrete evidence on the evolutionary process, but the course is aimed at discussing the paths and repercussions involved in these changes rather than specific data. Students have the chance to become familiar with the analysis of human remains and Forensic Anthropology in a theoretic-practical manner.