The issues

Students in the class are divided into 4 or 5 topics (2 groups per topic). Each group reads and discusses scholarly articles generally related to the assigned topic, ultimately producing a product that shows how anthropological analyses can help us understand humanitarian and development issues better. At the end of each semester, the students have a chance to meet with professionals in these sectors and discuss their ‘findings’. 

Until 2021, students wrote blog posts in their small groups. Since then, the class has experimented with different final products: lesson plans for Year 10 students (2021-2022), non-textual ‘exhibit’ objects (2022-2023), and tabletop games (2024-2025), for example. Take a look below! 

• Refugees and asylum seekers
  • On professionals working with and for refugees and asylum seekers.
• Humanitarianism in crisis situations
  • On aid work in conflicts, disasters and other ‘crisis’ events.
• Rethinking development
  • On the politics and knowledge practices of development aid as it transforms.
• Beyond the Developing World
  • On thinking about development and humanitarian issues beyond the Global South/Global North divide. 
• Professions of ‘doing good’
  • On what it means for people to be professionals in ‘doing good’.