Humans and their environments: Research Proposal - Essay Writing

Internal Code: MAS5718

Multiculturalism and nationalism:

Case Study: You are required to choose an issue or context that relates to one of the themes explored during this course. Using your own research, write a 1000-word argumentative essay that weaves together information about this issue or context with anthropological theory learned during the course. Your essay must follow a standard essay structure – that is, introduction, body, and conclusion – and must demonstrate correct referencing. Questions: 1a.     Anthropologists hold firm to the theory that humans are just as much shaped by environments as environments are shaped by humans. Pick an example of a recent or current context in which a group of people has experienced massive environmental changes in a relatively short space of time (e.g. deforestation, ice melt, toxicity, sea level rise, construction of dams or mines, changes in wildlife numbers or behaviour, etc.), and explore the impact that these changes have had on the culture/s of the people in question. Make sure to use anthropological literature to research and answer this question, so that you centre an anthropological perspective in your response. 1b.      Anthropologists study people’s senses of belonging to place in a range of different contexts. In World101x, we saw how strong feelings of belonging factor into Indigenous connections with sites and landscapes, as well as conflicts over coal seam gas prospecting and extraction. Find an example of your own that centres people’s sense of belonging to a particular place, in the context of conflict over land use. How do the notions of ‘belonging’ and ‘place’ factor into this context, and how are anthropologists involved in mediating or exploring the conflict? What parts of the anthropological toolkit are being used, or might be useful, in order to better understand this context?