Subject Area: Sociology and Anthropology
This course can also be studied in the following specialisation: Australian Studies

In this course you will focus on the practice of doing fieldwork in anthropology, sociology and more broadly social research settings. Through ethnography and interactions with people in place, you will develop practical skills in how one engages in face-to-face encounters of a qualitative and ethnographic nature, to develop understandings of how people locate themselves in the place world. People live their lives in cities, villages, townships, and across homelands, and make powerful attachments to place as home, or threat, a place of substance or transience. How do we tell stories of these encounters, and how do we find our own ethnographic voice? Places, landscapes and seascapes - real or imagined - encode and express identity. They are also locations for conflict and contestation. In this course you will use theories and case studies from anthropology and sociology in conjunction with a student designed fieldwork project to examine and better understand the relations between people and place. You will explore senses of belonging and investigate how colonisation and migration complicate the relationship between self, group, community and place. Other themes addressed include emotional and sensory geography, ethnicity, gender and sexuality in place.