121-107 Social Order and Social Change

Formerly available as 121-051. Students who have completed 121-051 are not eligible to enrol in this subject. Formerly available as 136-171/001. Students who have completed 136-171 or 136-001 are not eligible to enrol in this subject.

This subject explores the variety of ways in which human behaviour and institutions are both constrained by and transcend environments and our shared nature as human beings. The major focus of the subject is an exploration of the dynamic interaction between processes of order and change in social life and its effects on how people experience the different worlds they inhabit. Important topics to be considered include the relationship between the global and the local, the transformative aspects of ritual experience, the persistence of kinship relations and religious ideologies, and the politics of identity. There is a regional emphasis on Australia and the Pacific.

Written work totalling 3000 words and a 1-hour class test.

A subject reader will be available.

• D Gewertz & F Errington, Twisted Histories, Altered Contexts. Cambridge University Press, 1991.
• R Tonkinson, The Mardu Aborigines. Living the Dream in Australia's Desert. Holt Rinehart & Winston, 2nd ed., 1991.