Teaching anthropology: problems and prospects

On October 16th, 2015, under the project ‘Man in a Changing World. Identity and Social Adaptation : Past and Present’ (Russian Government grant #14.B25.31.0009) there was an international workshop held at TSU titled ‘The organization of teaching social anthropology in higher education system: problems and prospects’. The event took place in the TSU Museum of Archeology and Ethnography of Siberia.

Leading Russian and European anthropologists who chair university departments of anthropology attended the workshop: Natalia Anatolievna Struchkova (Yakutsk, Ammosov North-Eastern Federal University), Tatiana Borisovna Smirnova (Omsk, Omsk State University), Alexey Grigorievich Zagrebin (Izhevsk, Udmurtia State University), Irina Yurievna Trushkova (Vyatka, Vyatka State University for the Humanities), Alexey Gennadievich Novozhilov (Saint Petersburg, Saint Petersburg State University), Olga Yurievna Artyomova (Moscow, Russian State University for the Humanities), Dmitri Anatolievich Funk (Moscow, Lomonosov Moscow State University), Elena Vyacheslavovna Miskova (Moscow, Lomonosov Moscow State University), Peter Schweitzer (Austria, University of Vienna), Zoltan Nagy (Hungary, University of Pecs, Waldemar Kuligowski (Poland, University of Poznan), Wojciech Olszewski (Poland, University of Torun), Vladislava Vladimirova (Sweden, University of Uppsala), as well as the TSU hosts of the event – Irina Vladimirovna Nam, Irina Gennadievna Popravko, Zhanna Anatolievna Rozhnyova.

The participants shared their experience in the elaboration and implementation of educational programmes in anthropology at all levels including bachelor and master, and in the organization of learning process and field research. They also discussed the issue of educational and scientific literature needed for teaching anthropology.

LSAR fellows told about their teaching and research experience, as well as about some pressing issues in the implementation of the TSU educational programme ‘Anthropology and Ethnology’. They presented some of their research results and publications, in particular, the journal ‘Siberian Historical Research’ and the recently published monograph edited by Dmitri A. Funk ‘Culture and Resources. Ethnological Research on the Contemporary State of Indigenous Peoples in Northern Sakhalin’ (Moscow: Demos Publishing House LLC, 2015. P.272)

The workshop participants underlined a number of common problems that allow for cooperation to develop solutions thereto. Reviews of the workshop will be published in Russian and international research journals.