Eric J Montgomery
Eric J. Montgomery (PhD) is a Cultural anthropologist, Filmmaker, and Assistant Professor of Anthropology and adviser in Peace and Justice Studies at Michigan State University. He was a Saperstein Senior Fellow and long-time Faculty member in the Center for Peace and Conflict at Wayne State University and Senior Lecturer in the Irvin D Reid Honors College for a decade.
Dr. Montgomery is the Author and Editor of three books: Spirit Service(2022) w/ CN Vannier and Tim Landry Ethnography of a Vodu Shrine in Southern Togo (2017) with CN Vannier and Brill Press and Editor and Contributor to Shackled Sentiments (2019) with Rowman and Littlefield. Other recent publications can be found in Springer Handbook on Hum Trafficking (2024)SuperNature Labs (2023), Oxford Anthropology (2022) J of Rel in Africa (2021), (2019), ETropic (2019), Sapiens (2019), American Ethnologist (2018), Journal of Religion and Society (2016), Journal of Ritual Studies (2018), Journal of Africana Religions (2016), Shaman (2016), Visual Anthropology (2017), The Applied Anthropologist (2015), and dozens more. His newest endeavor is a student-centered text book called "Digital Storytelling and Social Justice" with Professor Beth Drexler and Director Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri.
He is Executive Producer of two forthcoming films partnering with the Puwenawa people’s concerning biodiversity, forest protection, and plant medicine in the Amazon working with Producers and Directors GK Reid and Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri. Another ongoing ethnographic film focuses on Slave Spirits in the African Diaspora and ritual embodiments of ancestors and foreign spirits.
His primary research interest includes anthropology of religion, ritual studies, African studies, peace and conflict studies, human rights, global health, visual anthropology, and applied anthropology. Currently he teaches undergraduate courses in anthropology and peace and justice at Michigan State University. For a decade before that undergraduate and graduate courses in Peace and Conflict, Cultural Anthropology, Global Health, and Anthropology of Africa at Wayne State University and Central Michigan University.
Dr. Montgomery’s is working on a series of films shorts detailing "Vodun Gods” with archival footage spanning more than 30 years and detailing the ritual and social dramas in Orisha, Vodun, and Vodou throughout the African Diaspora. His first two films (produced with CN Vannier) Chasing the Spirit (2012) and African Herbsmen (2013) were screened in Detroit, Michigan, Washington DC, and Paris, France. His films and books have been reviewed by Choice Magazine, Comparative Studies in Society and History (CSSH), American Ethnologist, Journal of Religion in Africa, Religion, and more.
As an activist Montgomery is deeply committed to causes of racial, gender, economic, and environmental justice. He has developed over a dozen courses in anthropology, social Justice, and ethnography over the past five years. New endeavors include ethnographic and documentary films on slavery, Black spirits, racial justice, and global capitalism in the US, West Africa, India, and Latin America and the Caribbean.
Supervisors: Professor Nwando Achebe, Professor of History, Michigan State University, Dr. Andrea Sankar, Chair of Anthropology, Wayne State, ([email protected]), Professor Todd Fenton, Michigan State University, Dr. Fred Pearson, Director, Center for Peace and Conflict Studies ([email protected]), Dr. Thomas Killion, Archaeologist, Wayne State, [email protected], Dr. Alvin Saperstein, Wayne State University, Professor Emeritus of Physics, [email protected], Dr. David Akin, Managing Editor, Comparative Studies in Society and History ([email protected]), Dr. Judy Rosenthal, Professor Emeritus, University of Michigan, ([email protected]), and Dr. Elizabeth Drexler, Michigan State University, Associate Professor of Anthropology ([email protected])
Phone: 313-600-1421
Address: Detroit, Michigan, United States
[email protected]
Dr. Montgomery is the Author and Editor of three books: Spirit Service(2022) w/ CN Vannier and Tim Landry Ethnography of a Vodu Shrine in Southern Togo (2017) with CN Vannier and Brill Press and Editor and Contributor to Shackled Sentiments (2019) with Rowman and Littlefield. Other recent publications can be found in Springer Handbook on Hum Trafficking (2024)SuperNature Labs (2023), Oxford Anthropology (2022) J of Rel in Africa (2021), (2019), ETropic (2019), Sapiens (2019), American Ethnologist (2018), Journal of Religion and Society (2016), Journal of Ritual Studies (2018), Journal of Africana Religions (2016), Shaman (2016), Visual Anthropology (2017), The Applied Anthropologist (2015), and dozens more. His newest endeavor is a student-centered text book called "Digital Storytelling and Social Justice" with Professor Beth Drexler and Director Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri.
He is Executive Producer of two forthcoming films partnering with the Puwenawa people’s concerning biodiversity, forest protection, and plant medicine in the Amazon working with Producers and Directors GK Reid and Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri. Another ongoing ethnographic film focuses on Slave Spirits in the African Diaspora and ritual embodiments of ancestors and foreign spirits.
His primary research interest includes anthropology of religion, ritual studies, African studies, peace and conflict studies, human rights, global health, visual anthropology, and applied anthropology. Currently he teaches undergraduate courses in anthropology and peace and justice at Michigan State University. For a decade before that undergraduate and graduate courses in Peace and Conflict, Cultural Anthropology, Global Health, and Anthropology of Africa at Wayne State University and Central Michigan University.
Dr. Montgomery’s is working on a series of films shorts detailing "Vodun Gods” with archival footage spanning more than 30 years and detailing the ritual and social dramas in Orisha, Vodun, and Vodou throughout the African Diaspora. His first two films (produced with CN Vannier) Chasing the Spirit (2012) and African Herbsmen (2013) were screened in Detroit, Michigan, Washington DC, and Paris, France. His films and books have been reviewed by Choice Magazine, Comparative Studies in Society and History (CSSH), American Ethnologist, Journal of Religion in Africa, Religion, and more.
As an activist Montgomery is deeply committed to causes of racial, gender, economic, and environmental justice. He has developed over a dozen courses in anthropology, social Justice, and ethnography over the past five years. New endeavors include ethnographic and documentary films on slavery, Black spirits, racial justice, and global capitalism in the US, West Africa, India, and Latin America and the Caribbean.
Supervisors: Professor Nwando Achebe, Professor of History, Michigan State University, Dr. Andrea Sankar, Chair of Anthropology, Wayne State, ([email protected]), Professor Todd Fenton, Michigan State University, Dr. Fred Pearson, Director, Center for Peace and Conflict Studies ([email protected]), Dr. Thomas Killion, Archaeologist, Wayne State, [email protected], Dr. Alvin Saperstein, Wayne State University, Professor Emeritus of Physics, [email protected], Dr. David Akin, Managing Editor, Comparative Studies in Society and History ([email protected]), Dr. Judy Rosenthal, Professor Emeritus, University of Michigan, ([email protected]), and Dr. Elizabeth Drexler, Michigan State University, Associate Professor of Anthropology ([email protected])
Phone: 313-600-1421
Address: Detroit, Michigan, United States
[email protected]
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Papers by Eric J Montgomery
When I ask students when slavery ended, most say something like “With the thirteenth amendment” or “At the end of the Civil War”—and, only a handful realize that modern slavery is everywhere, even right “next door” as Bales (2010) has pointed out. While conducting ethnographic research in Africa, slavery is often right underneath our noses, and often we do not put it together in our mind. The children working as market vendors when they should be in school, the children in my village in Togo aboard the fishing boats, and child beggars sprinkled throughout the various markets—are all examples of modern-day slaves. The major types of slavery are: chattel slavery (still existing today in places like Sudan and Algeria); debt bondage (alive and well throughout Africa as poor families “sell” children to pay debt and remittances); forced labor (servitude maintained through coercion and violence); and, sex slavery (pervasive in all 54 countries on the African continent). Nigeria, with sub-Saharan Africa’s highest population, also has the highest number of contemporary slaves. Most of these come from human sex trafficking and forced labor. Examples include women tricked into migration for non-existent jobs and forced to work as prostitutes, household workers whom are promised pay, bur are granted neither pay nor legal immigration status, children working as vendors, in mines, stone quarries, or in the fields. Other examples spawn from conflict and war, when child soldiers are forced to fight for military groups, or kidnapped like the school girls in Nigeria were by Boko Haram. Many girls are also trafficked out of Africa, and the EU estimates that 60% of all sex workers in Belgium and Italy are of Nigerian descent. Nigeria has over 800,000 of the estimated 6.4 million people living in modern slavery. Africa accounts for around 20% of the people trapped in modern slavery today.
JOURNAL OF RITUAL STUDIES, 2018, Volume 2)
The purpose of this article is to ethnographically document and analyze the ceremonial performance of a Fetatrotro (New Year’s) celebration in Gorovodu among the Ewes of Southern Togo. Anlo-Ewe adepts in southern Togo construct their personhood and reaffirm communal morality through rituals and ceremonies, which build on the understandings of sacrifice and violence outlined by René Girard (1979). Slavery and violence are cornerstones of Ewe existence along the coast, beginning with the Trans-Atlantic trade and continuing with domestic servitude into the twentieth century, so, ritual helps to deal with this discord and conflict by bringing reconciliation and atonement to past injustices via mimesis, performance, and elaborate ritual (Vannier and Montgomery, 2016; Argenti, 2007). The Ewes have a long history of cultural contact and conflict with neighboring groups, colonial powers, and regional northerners who were bought and sold by Ewes in the south during the Atlantic Slave Trade and afterwards in the domestic slave trade at the turn of the century (Montgomery and Vannier, 2017; Argenti 2007; Greene 2002, 1996; Rosenthal 1998; Grace 1975). Domestic slavery perpetuated a movement of northern “bought people” (amefleflewo) and their religious ideas south, and a dispersion of individual medicine gods from many northern regions were eventually assembled into the Gorovodu pantheon by the 1920’s and 1930’s by Kodzokuma (Friedson 2010; Field, 1960). Past analyses have focused on the ritual exchange and mimesis inherent to spirit worship and performance (Friedson 2010; Argenti 2007; Rosenthal 1998) but the point of departure here frames these performances in terms of personhood, morality, and the “romanticization” of these descendants of northern slaves and gods who help to construct personhood and moral law in the present. In Ewe Gorovodu “debt stays” and the fruits of conquest and slave labor must be made right through rituals of memorialization, reciprocity, and performance where the spirits of slaves and ancestors alike are granted the chance to come and dance the bodies of spirit wives (tronduvi). If these spirits are not given proper ceremony, most importantly the chance to mount the bodies of southern adepts in possession trance, then, they will manifest in the form of illness, witchcraft (aze), and social strife (maso maso). If they are appeased, cajoled, and listened to, they are believed to bring good luck and health to adherents (gorovoduviwo). “They Died in Blood” is a thick-description highlighting the “wild bush spirits” from the north who have been assimilated into local Gorovodu religion, and the relationships these vumeku (lit: “died in blood”) spirits have on individual personhood, conflict management, and collective moral code.
This paper explores the integration of religion, shamanism and voodoo through the life and acts of one gorovodu (voodoo of the kola nut) practitioner named Sofo Bisi among the Ewes of southern Togo. Bisi is a regional shaman and diviner (bokonosofo) with almost sixty years of experience working with voodoo spirits, plant-based medicines, and extensive ritual to protect individuals and the social order of the community. The purpose here is to espouse negative associations and misunderstandings surrounding “voodoo” and related orders, and to stake a claim for such rituals as true shamanism. This paper stems from ethnographic research into gorovodu by the author from 1996-2013; topics such as healing, spirit possession, witchcraft, and the like are evaluated and synthesized within the frameworks of voodoo and shamanism.
Keywords: Voodoo, shamanism, ethno-medicine, spirit possession, witchcraft, gorovodu, Togo
The purpose of this article is to document the empirical uses of the materia medica of vodu priest-healers and con-textualize these medicines in the religious matrices of southern Togo. Gorovodu is the dominant religion of the area and central to the physical and social well-being of ethnic Ewe vodu practitioners in the greater Volta region. Though ethno-pharmacological and anthropological research has focused on African medicine for quite some time, disciplinary boundaries frequently relegate the material dimensions to ethno-pharmacology and the symbolic di-mensions to anthropology, reinforcing nature-culture dualisms inherent to Western thought. This article seeks to unify empirical data stemming from the ethno-pharmacological literature on plant medicine and ethnographic data on etiology, diagnosis, and treatment to provide a more cross-disciplinary view of medicine and healing in West Afri-ca. Engaging community priest-healers and patients in a fishing community along the Bight of Benin, researchers gathered data on plant medicines and plant-based healing practices using videography and participant observa-tion from 2005-2006 and again in 2013. This article contributes to the growing body of literature on African herb-al medicine by expanding upon previous ethno-pharmacological codifications and supporting them by giving ethno-graphic treatment to values and beliefs of vodu religion in which these prescriptions are situated.
This book is unique, timely, and invigorating on all levels. At first thought, my expectations were reserved at best, and gravely concerned at worst. The idea of a Jesuit Priest doing more than tolerating African Religion, coupled with the term “animist” in the title, made me apprehensive, but quickly moved to deep captivation. After a quick reading of the introduction and chapter one, I was sold! “Religion and Faith in Africa”, is convincing it its thesis that Christianity and Islam are “fruit(s) produced from those roots that reach down into the soil. That soil is African religion” (2018, 171). Orabator backs this assertion up time and time again with analogies and evidence testifying to the power of African Religion to form a bedrock for all other forms of religion and spirituality on the continent. He does so with historical, theological, anthropological, and hermeneutical perspectives which lend great validity and reliability to this claim.
E. P. Renne, University of Michigan, CHOICE, Vol. 54 No. 12
Book Review, Choice, Volume 54, No. 12 (2017)
DOUGLAS J. FALEN
First published: 15 May 2018
https://doi.org/10.1111/amet.12661
Go here for SFX360 Link to Full Text
In their account of the intimate relationships and interactions between humans and gods—Vodu—in the coastal Ewe village of Gbedala in Togo, Eric Montgomery and Christian Vannier use narration of religious ceremonies and testimony from priests, practitioners, and other friends to portray a world where humans and gods live, suffer, and celebrate together within a single community. Amid the struggles for survival in a poor, postcolonial nation ruled by a dictatorship for 50 years, Ewe people turn for support to imported Gorovodu: kola nut gods associated with former domestic slaves sold to southern Ewe families several generations ago. These gods are envisioned as quintessentially Other because they originated with slaves from the “wild” Muslim regions of northern Ghana and Togo, and they are fed northern foods, like kola, and dressed in northern styles during possessions.
With its detailed ethnographic and linguistic information as well as its theoretically sophisticated analysis, this monograph is a valuable reference for specialists in West African religions, particularly for scholars of Vodu and related Vodun traditions. Half the book is devoted to the theoretical framework, Ewe history, an overview of the village of Gbedala, and the names and characteristics of deities in the Gorovodu pantheon. While this information may be useful for some, it is less captivating than the second half of the book, in which the authors narrate their experiences at various ceremonies and provide exquisite ethnographic details about the composition of shrines and the ritual procedures involved in the four pillars of Gorovodu: prayer, sacrifice, divination, and possession.
The book's primary theoretical arguments center around the authors’ elaboration of two concepts: ritual economy and mimesis. Ritual economy refers not only to the exchange relations between humans and gods but to the economic activities (e.g., fishing, commerce, borrowing) that provide the resources to sustain these relations. All gods in the Gorovodu pantheon have their own tastes in food, drink, music, and sacrificial animals, and adherents are responsible for satisfying the deities’ demands in exchange for health, luck, success, and protection from witchcraft. For all rituals, priests and adherents must buy liquor, kola nuts, and animals to be offered to the deities. In addition, priests are responsible for constructing and maintaining the shrines and the various altars within them. One of the strengths of the book is that it offers us extensive details about the material, financial, and ritual obligations that religious leaders must respect in order to tend a shrine and nourish its spirits. This ritual economy creates reciprocal obligations by which gods and humans are bound and through which these different beings interact and form intimate relationships of mutual support.
Anthropology has a long history of being involved in social justice activism, and much anthropological work circulates around issues of conflict resolution in cultures throughout the world. And yet, regarding Countering Violent Extremism (CVE), anthropological input has been underrepresented, and rarely is it interjected in policy decisions concerning violent extremism, even in countries where anthropologists work. This article is a marriage between conflict management and resolution on the one hand, and the core themes of cultural and activist anthropology on the other. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate anthropology's unique position to provide a conceptual anchor towards combating violent extremism with a special trajectory towards Africa. It combines the anthropological literature with some ethnographic research on conflict resolution to introduce the idea of a Culture and Peace Lab (CPL) to combat violence, with special attention to Togo in Western Africa, and Tanzania in Eastern Africa. Abstract: Anthropology has a long history of being involved in social justice activism, and much anthropological work circulates around issues of conflict resolution in cultures throughout the world. And yet, regarding Countering Violent Extremism (CVE), anthropological input has been underrepresented, and rarely is it interjected in policy decisions concerning violent extremism, even in countries where anthropologists work. This article is a marriage between conflict management and resolution on the one hand, and the core themes of cultural and activist anthropology on the other. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate anthropology's unique position to provide a conceptual anchor towards combating violent extremism with a special trajectory towards Africa. It combines the anthropological literature with some ethnographic research on conflict resolution to introduce the idea of a Culture and Peace Lab (CPL) to combat violence, with special attention to Togo in Western Africa, and Tanzania in Eastern Africa.
Offering much-needed perspective on this historically disparaged religion, Spirit Service reminds us all that the gods are growing, assimilating, and demanding recognition and respect.
This is a journey into the ritual life of Ewe Gorovodu adepts in Togo, West Africa. The film is useful to those interested in comparative religion, Africana Studies, slavery, political-eco.nomy, and music. The footage was shot in 2003, 04, and 2011
Course Description and Objectives:
This course will address human rights both as a theoretical construct and as an internationally recognized set of legal norms. We will take an anthropological and people centered approach to issues of human rights throughout the globe, while looking at what Paul Farmer has dubbed “Pathologies of Power and the New War on the Poor.” It will explore international human rights treaties and the efforts being made to implement their terms. It will further seek to put these efforts in anthropological perspective by examining classic works of anthropology and political thought that have inspired the human rights movement, as well as the writings of critics from the Left and the Right.
Because human rights violations are associated, in the popular imagination, with vicious and sadistic practices that all principled and caring people find appalling, it is sometimes assumed that human rights are a topic on which all principled and caring people agree. In reality, however, the topic is multifaceted, complex, and rife with passionate disagreement. And Philip Alston & Ryan Goodman, International Human Rights book chooses a wide selection of materials from primary and secondary sources--legislation, case law, and academic writings--in order to demonstrate and illuminate key themes. They carefully guide students through each extract with thoughtful and lucid commentary. Questions are posed throughout the book in order to encourage deeper reflection and critical inquiry, we will have open conversations about the readings. This course is dedicated to exploring disturbing and controversial questions, such as: "negative" (civil) vs. "affirmative" (economic and social) rights; democracy as a human right; duties of nonintervention; "universal" rights as cultural imperialism; group rights; the rights of minorities within minorities; pathologies of power and war on the poor (Farmer); and, failures to address the subjugation of women.
Upon completion of the course, students will be able to:
1. Describe the relationships between historical events and changing political and
Social issues in Africa
2. Describe relationships between environmental, political, and cultural forces in Africa
3. Explain ways people express their different social identities across the continent of
Africa
4. Accurately discuss at least one contemporary issue facing Africa in an in-depth way
V. METHODOLOGY
This class will consist of a combination of lectures, films, classroom discussions, classroom activities and individual research. Lectures will be drawn from the textbook and from additional references materials. Discussions and in-class assignments will be based upon weekly topics. The class will begin with a discussion of the discipline of Anthropology. The major areas of the continent and the focus countries will be presented next. Finally, we will discuss the major areas and examine the geographical, cultural and historical context of each.
VI. COURSE OUTLINE/ASSIGNMENTS
Pre-Class Assignment:
Yes, views of Africa. Perspectives on Africa? Country and Regions you would like to know more about?
Pre-Class Assignments:
1. Map of the African continent showing current political boundaries. You may download one from an Internet site (there are many from which to choose, for example, http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/africa.html,
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/reference_maps/africa.html or you may purchase a map. In either case, make sure it is easy to read and will last for the whole course.
Course Outline:
Week One (1/14) - Introduction to Anthropology and Africa
• Syllabus and Course Overview: Chap 1 / • What is Anthropology?/ • Basic Concepts in Anthropology/ • Discussion of PreClass Essays/ • The Diverse African Continent/ • African Geography
Week Two (1/21) - Major Areas and Focus Countries / History and Politics: G&G (chapters 3-4)
• West Africa: Benin, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone
• Central Africa: Cameroon, Chad, DRC
• East Africa: Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Uganda
• Southern Africa: Lesotho, Mozambique, South Africa, Zimbabwe
• North Africa: Egypt, Morocco, Sudan
• Historical Context: Peopling, trade, colonialism; • African Politics: Colonialism, Nationalism, Independence, and more
• Assignment #1/ Review due (4%) and Personal Impressions Essay (5%)
(Physics, History, Political Science and Peace and Conflict Studies)
Professor Alvin M. Saperstein and Dr. Eric Montgomery
Thursday: 5:30-8:00 (0021 Manoogian Hall)
[email protected] / [email protected]
Description: This course is an interdisciplinary approach to climate change, focused on the connections between science, culture, and policy. Most scientists believe that we need to take immediate action to mitigate the effects of climate change. But politicians at both the national and the international level have, so far, done little consider the threat of climate change and the need to curb carbon emissions. In this seminar, we draw on a broad array of readings to understand the empirical and normative challenges posed by global warming. We look at the history of human beings and their relationship to climate and their environment. And we work chronologically from ancient times up to the present era (the Anthropocene). We will focus on issues such as sustainability, energy production, energy consumption, greenhouse gases, and policy.
Is the climate changing? Is that bad? Is there anything we can do about it? Why have political actors found it so difficult to agree on an effective response to climate change? And what would a just response to global warming look like? What is the role of culture as it relates to ideas and policies surrounding environmentalism and sustainability? How does climate affect culture, and vice versa? After gaining a brief overview over the history and science of global warming in the first part of the course, we look at the findings of the growing literature of empirical science and contemporary policy and cultural trends throughout the globe. In particular, we study three of the challenges—relating to public opinion, international cooperation, and economics—that make a more muscular response so difficult. Second, we address the possibilities and challenges concerning energy usage? Third, we look at the effects of climate change on the prospects of war and peace.
Every possible political option for tackling climate change—or failing to tackle climate change— distributes risks and burdens in a distinctive manner. This raises a host of questions about distributive justice. According to what principles should we distribute the right to pollute? What do we owe to people who are far away in space (like the residents of Africa and Asia who are most likely to be adversely affected by climate change) or time (like the future generations who will suffer most from rampant global warming)? And what weight should we assign to non-human interests, like the possible extinction of other species? Building on the insights from the empirical and normative literature about climate change, we end the course by surveying concrete policy options. Traditionally, most environmentalists have championed a focus on the “mitigation” of climate change: they have insisted that the only satisfactory response to climate change is to minimize the extent of global warming by a return to less resource-intensive economic arrangements and lifestyles. More recently, a growing movement of “ecomodernists” has championed a focus on “adaptation”: they embrace technology and capitalism, and seek to use technological and economic levers to prepare us for a warmer world. We seek to evaluate the respective attractions and perils of each of these positions, in part by looking at the controversial ideas across many disciplines.
Books and Readings:
Diamond, Jared, Collapse, Penguin Books, 2005.
Perlmutter, Daniel D. and Robert L. Rothstein, The Challenge of Climate Change: Which Way Now? Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.
Saperstein, Alvin M. Physics: Energy in the Environment, Reprinted by XanEdu, Ann Arbor.
We will follow the outline of the text (Waging War: WW) and look at cultures and technologies of warfare from 3500 BC up until the present, and also delve into regions and conflicts spanning the gamut of homo-sapiens history with conflict. The second half of the class looks at modern issues of warfare since 1930 including technological tools, biological and chemical weapons, and vulnerabilities to critical infrastructure. Participants in this course will be encouraged to review additional resources (as well as corresponding weekly readings) to have a better understanding of the United States’ role in peace and conflict issues, and to develop a global perspective on alternative solutions to international conflict and wars. Wayne Lee’s “Waging War” offers us an inter-disciplinary approach to innovations in warfare throughout human history, while the supplemental readings (provided on Canvas under “Files” as well as with links in the syllabus. Our readings will encompass themes and trends regarding science, technology, and modern trends of conflict and warfare within the past century or so.
Rationale
This class takes as its basic premise that science and facts matter. In an era of increasingly complex political and military conflicts, which includes disturbing trends like international pandemics, the use of child soldiers, drones, and cyber warfare, it is essential for students and all citizens of the world to be aware of the causes and ramifications of such conflicts, the relationship between power, culture, and innovation, and the possibilities of effective resolution. As an anthropologist, Montgomery will talk a lot of about cultural relativity as a means for combatting ethnocentrism and understanding the role of culture and history. Saperstein will offer a nuanced look at military history, technological innovation, and the “science” and history of warfare across time and space.
We expect that you will work hard individually to present “in class: via Zoom every week collaboratively, as we go through each discussion question, for which you must choose (2) from a detailed list and come prepared during Monday Zooms to discuss on a weekly basis. The virtual classroom setting is a cooperative “safe space” where we dialogue and talk to one another with respect and inclusivity. It is also important for students to become more reflective and analytical when dealing with issues of science, technology, and war. You should be able to ask critical questions, understand the relationships between cause and effect, and develop the capacity of independent thinking and collective decision-making. If service is the rent, we pay for living in this world then we should all be committed to peace, cultural relativity, and holism when approaching local, global, and regional problems relating to conflict.
Operative Learning Outcomes
In this class we will use "slavery and human trafficking" as starting points to help us critically analyze the relationships between sex, gender, and human rights; race, colonialism, and political economy (thinking about the Atlantic slave trade, the Gulf kafala system, and South Asian caste structures); capitalism and labor exploitation (especially in the food and agriculture industry); public health and bodily violence (focusing on organ transplants and commercial surrogacy); and new technologies used by police and workers alike. Our case examples will include issues that receive high media publicity (The ongoing Epstein case)—to stimulate critical thinking. I will assign videos, music, films, poetry, and other multimedia pieces to engage with the topic. There will also be a huge spread of lectures posted on Canvas (under FILES) that you should visit weekly and draw from in your discussion boards and assignments.
By the end of this course students will be thinking critically about the relationships between knowledge production; identity politics; community engagement and cultural specificity; governance, policing, and bureaucracy; techno science and the politics of aid and development; and systems of capitalism and political economy. We will be dealing with some difficult texts—texts that are visual, tactile, and may be emotionally triggering, they deal with sexual and emotional violence, child abuse, and war and mass violence. Please talk to me at any point if you have any concerns, questions, or difficulties.
Course Objectives are that Students will be able to: Develop an understanding of the interrelationship between human trafficking and international, and intercultural perspective. Discuss human trafficking in terms of the major historical, local, and global perspective develop potential solutions to problems associated with human trafficking; identify the definitions and prevalence of human trafficking; Describe the underlying causes of human trafficking; Recognize the impact of human trafficking at multiple scales (e.g., individual, societal, national and international). Apply the lens of many disciplines across the humanities, biological and social sciences (Sociology, Social Work, Peace Studies, Anthropology, Global Health, Public Health, Criminal Justice, Film Studies, Art, and more).
Eric Montgomery, PhD
Mon/Wed 12:40-2:00 (Synchronous Zoom)
Office Hours: Virtual 2:00-2:30 on Zoom after class
Office is 344 Baker Hall
Instructor Bio: Eric J. Montgomery is a Cultural Anthropologist and Assistant Professor at Michigan State University where he serves as the Peace and Justice Adviser; he is also a faculty member in the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies at Wayne State University in Detroit. He is the co-author of the book “Ethnography of a Vodu Shrine in Southern Togo” (BRILL, 2017), and editor and contributor to “Shackled Sentiments: Memory and Slavery in the African Diaspora” (Rowman and Littlefield, 2019). He is also editor and contributor to a forthcoming book on Global Voodoo with Indiana University Press. Eric is the director and producer of two films Chasing the Spirit and African Herbsmen stemming from ethnographic research in Western Africa.
Course Description: This course is intended to provide a thorough understanding about issues related to peace, conflict, and justice. You are expected to be in attendance remotely for bi-weekly Zoom classes most Tue and Thu. We are amidst some of the greatest social protest in a generation, and this class will address issues of social justice and peace head-on. Meanings of peace, peace movements, reasons for wars (at the individual, group, state, decision-making and the ideological, social, and economic levels), and the nature and significance of nuclear weapons will be explored. We will assess the ongoing powder-keg in Israel/Palestine through the life story of fertility doctor turned peace-activist Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish. Meanwhile, the Peace and Conflict textbook will provide a chronology for the course starting with war and peace and international human rights.
Discussions will include how international and regional organizations cooperate with nation states in transforming conflict into building positive and negative peace. Participants in this course will be encouraged to review additional resources to have a better understanding of the United States’ role in peace and conflict issues, and to develop a global perspective on alternative solutions to international conflict and wars. A special attention will also be devoted to discussing the relevance of gender and race to peace and conflict issues and the prospects for anthropology. We will also look at the need for love, compassion, and understanding with a close read of Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish’s “I Shall not Hate” which details his experiences as a Palestinian Doctor working in Israel and the fallout of a 2009 Israeli tank attack where he lost his daughters and niece, if he does not hate, nor should we. Locally, we will address the horrors of human sex trafficking through the life story from victim to survivor of Alice Jay, and her book “Out of the Darkness: A Survivor’s Story.”