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Paper short abstract:

How universities in the USA understand and express care for their students well being? And why are these care practices controversial? Based on ethnographic research in two universities I show that American academic care is comprised of three major cultural logics: legal, parental and therapeutic.

Paper long abstract:

Care is a symbolic concept charged with cultural, social and political meanings (McKamey 2004), and caring relationships are fraught with contradictions (Gonzales and De Jesus 2006); indeed, caught between growing numbers allegations for “coddling the American mind” (Lukianoff and Haidt, 2015), or promoting a “culture of victimhood” (Campbell and Manning 2017) on the one hand, and calls to better understand the current generation of students on the other (Seemiller and Grace 2016), caring for college students in the USA has never been so controversial. But what makes up American academic care? What cultural logics ground it? And which moral dilemmas does it echo which make it so controversial? Using an anthropological methodology and perspective, this article answers these questions and argues that American academic care is comprised of three major cultural logics: legal, parental and therapeutic. American academic care includes: 1) the negotiations of ample formal rules and regulations, 2) viewing students as kids and thus providing some sort of institutional parental care, 3) and a therapeutic view of helping relationships as attuned to the individual emotions of the person being helped. Putting these cultural notions together flashes out and explains inherent tensions in caring for students. I maintain that the following analysis can/will be useful for policy makers and care providers alike.

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Paper short abstract:

The Art of Belonging: rituals as institutionalised structures of advocacy, rites of passage, and conduits of belonging. What might rituals teach us about the enduring nature of collective memory? And, how might rituals invite us to connect to ourselves and others in enduring, perennial ways.

Paper long abstract:

This paper employs an (auto) ethnographic lens to consider the role of rituals in cultivating a sense of belonging among historically marginalised individuals. As the only black person in UCL's 2015 BSc Anthropology intake of approximately 80 students, I take stock of how the first-year-field-trip might have invited me to see myself and everything I might bring to the discipline as legitimate grounds for belonging. Since then, I achieved a first-class degree, 87% in my dissertation, and have pursued anthropology at Harvard and Oxford, as well as in the private sector. My broader PhD research considers Oxford's Astrophoria Foundation Year programme as a unique rite of passage enabling underrepresented UK students with lower grades, often indicative of social disadvantage, to access elite further education. The research seeks to understand how the Astrophoria programme - among other (in)formal rituals - operates as an ‘institutionalised structure of advocacy’ that acknowledges, champions, and legitimises different forms of diversity. Contributing to an anthropology of belonging, I consider what processes the students go through to become a member of Oxford University. I also seek to redefine ideas of deservingness, which at present are based on convoluted ideas of meritocracy. My methodology introduces the concept of an ‘Ethnographer in Residence’, drawing from existing 'in residence' roles at Oxford. This role enables me to leverage traditional and collaborative research tools such as participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and co-produced methods to do ethical 'homework' as opposed to fieldwork; I am a student at Oxford researching Oxford's culture.

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Paper short abstract:

A look at the cultural environment was necessary to understand why some expectations about the globalization of universities were not met and why some unexpected and contradictory results appeared. With this study I applied anthropological fieldwork to a Mexican university case to understand it.

Paper long abstract:

The original idea for this research came out a few years ago, when I was a junior researcher in a centre that made studies focussed on their own university. It was trying to understand the causes that at that time had transformed drastically this organization. Such researches tried to exert some influence over the reform shifts that their university was experienced, having not really success. For me was very necessary to search the human influence and cultural environment to understand why some expectations on the organizational modernization change, don't happened and why some others and unexpected results were appearing. Being an anthropologist, the motivation for me was to try to apply fieldwork methodology and anthropology theory into de university to find answers to this phenomenon.I was obligated to search the relationships between what was happening in my Mexican case and broader developments and global actors as IMF, UNESCO, WB and OECD.

After a general view of changes and reactions of higher education organizations all over the world it was clear that while programs and ideology, required by global actors are generalized while the expectations, actors’ attitudes and daily practices are varied and distinct. The socio-economic and cultural environments for every single university appear having a main importance for such a variety. Very early different cases were suggesting unexpected, paradoxical and hybrid results as response to those generalized attempts of the global actors.

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Paper short abstract:

This paper attempts to problematize the university as a shared space that has historically been producing uncommon chronicle of gender, and of other categorical inequalities, in India. How notions of popular culture with respect to gender institutionalized is discussed to dismantle the inequality.

Paper long abstract:

Common Space and Uncommon Chronicles; Exploring the Accounts Of Gender On Indian University Campus

Abstract

This paper proposed to examine how gender plays a key role in shaping the experiences of women

students on the university campus and stresses its’ social dynamics as a shared space. University has

been potential in shattering the glass-ceilings based on gender that actively challenged the patriarchal

notions and praxis. Hence, women became vocal and asserted their rights and identity that has been

silenced for ages globally. Theoretically, feminist studies have discussed the nature of androcentric

educational spaces and post-modern feminist theory incorporated the intersectional experiences of

women based on race, class, caste, religion, region, and so forth. However, the encounters of Indian

women students in South Asia need to be traversed deeper as the university space has its own codes of

conduct and expected gender conformity owing to their socio-cultural context. This presents the

whole dialogue of gender through a different lens. Therefore, probing questions such as how inclusive

are the inclusive universities as shown in the front line? How gender is being framed with the

different mechanisms of the university set up is significant. Grounded on these questions the study

presents an in-depth overview of the women students in Indian universities from the feminist’

perspective. Much of its analytical concepts and theoretical frameworks have been developed based

on empirical/ethnographic data collected from women students of a Central University located in

South India.

Keywords: University Education, Gender, Codes of Conduct, Feminism, Indian Women Students.

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Paper short abstract:

Aligning with sociological frameworks of emotions in relationships, this study posits that understanding a person's emotional vulnerabilities is a significant source to address intergenerational conflicts and communication, which is required for social anthropological understandings around emotions.

Paper long abstract:

Drawing upon the theoretical framework of sociological emotions as elucidated by Lupton (1998) and Hochschild (2003), the emotional vulnerabilities of an individual can be interpreted as a dual manifestation. Firstly, they serve as an accumulated repository, encapsulating subjective experiences that bear witness to resistance within a specific societal context. Secondly, these emotional vulnerabilities function as symbols, reflecting the influence of institutional and socio-cultural constraints that shape an individual's consciousness and determine their social trajectories. These emotional states signify facets of one's corporeal and psychological sovereignty and provide insights into dismantling subjugated identities within the self, such as internalised stigma or compromised identity that peripheral relations have impacted. However, dominant strands still stand for the deeply ingrained assumptions of Cartesian and Freudian psychological interpretations, which conventionally regard personal emotions as individual pathologies or liabilities.

Therefore, the discourse expounded within this paper resonates with the viewpoint advocated by the previously mentioned sociologists, asserting that emotions are the outcomes of socio-cultural influences within relational mechanisms. This assertion suggests that comprehending emotional narratives through anthropological perspectives represents a crucial avenue for reconciling disparate memories and cognitive frameworks about a particular event within a given society. Consequently, in light of the escalating phenomenon of intergenerational conflicts and societal fragmentation, this paper contends that integrating a socio-anthropological approach to personal emotions into educational curricula and psychological counselling procedures can contribute to reconceptualising common sense or normality across generations for their communication.

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Paper short abstract:

The MA Anthrozoology programme at the University of Exeter encourages students to think critically about the ethical implications of engaging with other animals. Multispecies ethnography as literature and method has been important for facilitating greater reflexive awareness and catalysing change.

Paper long abstract:

The MA programme in Anthrozoology at the University of Exeter approaches anthrozoology from a multi-disciplinary perspective, foregrounding anthropological, sociological, criminological and philosophical material, debates and methodologies. The curriculum emphasises the value of multi-species ethnography as both a methodological approach and a critical lens through which to interrogate and better understand the diverse effects and affects of multispecies entanglements. Students come from a range of academic and professional backgrounds, and while those with undergraduate degrees in the ‘sciences’ often struggle initially to embrace the qualitative, reflexive, affective and narrative aspects of ethnography, they quickly come to value what multispecies ethnography has to offer. Programme staff frequently notice the ways in which students’ attitudes and practices towards other animals change during the course of their studies, and this observation has been corroborated by student feedback. One of the most noticeable changes in ethical outlook is the number of students who transition to veganism as a result of the course, but other examples include career moves, changes to existing workplace policies and practices (for those who work in animal-related professions) and engagement in activist activities. This paper will present an analysis of some of the experiences of past and current students who have reflected on the impact the MA Anthrozoology programme has had on them and the animals in their care, situating these in relation to debates regarding the place of activism in anthropological scholarship, and highlighting the transformative potential of multispecies ethnography.