Discussion Board writing assignment for Week Two

1. Describe some of the historical influences that impact North Korean narratives and social identities, and their perceptions of Americans and South Koreans. 

2. What do North Koreans say about their reality in relation to the world around them?

3. Describe some of the ways that cultural analysis is applied in the military today. (Use Week One and Week Two readings to support your answer).  

4. The editors of Practicing Military Anthropologydescribe Christopher Varhola's ("Ethnicity and Shifting Identity") arguments in favor of increased collaboration between military operations and anthropologists and other social scientists as "nested in linkages between analysis of specific cultural patterns and military operations." What cultural patterns does Varhola believe could have been better understood (to the benefit of military operations) in Iraq, Sudan and East Africa?

Discussion Board writing assignment for Week Three

1. How does the production of cocaine impact the wider economy in Bolivia (particularly in rural areas), and in turn, impact other aspects of social life?

2. How are economic livelihoods and access to resources intertwined with the history of conflict in the Mindanao region of the Philippines?

Discussion Board writing assignment for Week Four

Q1: Outline and describe the system of segmentary lineage of the Nuer of Southern Sudan.  

Q2: How are social relations, kinship, age and status and religion reflected in the traditional system of Nuer Politics? 

Q3: Briefly describe some of the basic patterns of leadership, customary law and traditional conflict resolution techniques in Mindanao? In what situations might people in Mindanao use traditional customary law, and in what situations might they might they make appeals through formal state legal institutions?

Discussion Board writing assignment for Week Five

1. John Mueller argues "that the whole concept of 'ethnic warfare' may be severely misguided." How was the "banality of ethnic war" borne out in the cases of Croatia and Bosnia, and Rwanda, according to Mueller? 

2. According to Hutchinson, how has Nuer ethnicity been militarized?  What behavioral and social changes does Hutchinson cite as evidence of this militarization of the Nuer? 

3. In "Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War," Fearon and Laitin critique "an influential conventional wisdom [which] holds that civil wars proliferated rapidly with the end of the Cold War and that the root cause of many or most of these has been ethnic and religious antagonisms." What did Fearon and Laitin find to be the direct causes of civil conflict?  What did they find to be indirect causes, in other words, which factors did they find to be more weakly correlated with civil wars?

Discussion Board writing assignment for Week Six

Q1: Summarize how, according to Rodney Stark, social movements arise and how they succeed?  Describe where a "shared grievance" might arise from a population. 

Q2: In The True Believer, Eric Hoffer opines, “Discontent by itself does not invariably create a desire for change.”According to Hoffer, what other factor(s) have to be present to create a desire for change? What is required for success? Is Hoffer different from Stark? Explain why or why not.

Q3: Why in Toth's view, did Islamism take root in Southern Egypt? What political, economic and social conditions does Toth attribute to the rise of Islamism in Egypt?  What does Toth cite as the catalyst for the shift of some Islamists in Egypt from pacificism to militancy?   

Q4. What is the "strategic logic of suicide terrorism," according to Robert Pape?  Describe the five principal findings of Pape's study.  What evidence did Pape find for "the apparent success of suicide terrorism?"

Discussion Board writing assignment for Week Seven

Q1: What is "strategic culture?" According to the authors for the week, what does strategic culture consist of? 

Q2: How does China perceive itself? What threatens China's national security in the eyes of its influential elites?  How does China seek to address threats to China's national security? 

Q3: Norvell De Atkine writes, " Arabic-speaking armies have been generally ineffective in the modern era," and gives examples of outcomes from military confrontations with Iran, Western militaries, and Israel to support his claim. 

Why does De Atkine believe the U.S. army, i.e. military, "has a poor legacy" in assessing the national character and culture of opposing forces? What evidence does he provide?

What cultural attributes of Arab armies does De Atkine believe affect combat performance?  Provide your assessment of De Atkine's claims.  Are there any factors (political, economic, environment, etc,) not covered by De Atkine which might have significantly (or at least somewhat) impacted the outcomes of the military confrontations he uses to support his cultural attributes theory? 

Q4: Describe the three perspectives of Indian strategic culture as outlined by Kanti Bajpai.

Critic’s Corner Roles for Analysis of Readings/Videos

Devil’s Advocate: Challenge the ideas in the course materials by developing a list of critical and thoughtful questions and arguments that may be raised by critics. Include a brief explanation of why you are making this critique. This is more than just posing a critique for the sake of being critical. Instead, this is about digging deeper into the materials to see what is missing or not fully addressed in the sources you are exploring.

Feminist: Using this role you will want to examine the readings/videos from a feminist perspective. Using this lens you can explore if the resources give agency to female voices and members of the LGBTQ community. Are the issues and experiences of women (of all ethnicities) and the LGBTQ community included or marginalized in these materials? How can you apply these ideas to help female students, as well as those who may identify as transgendered?

Egoist: This view asks the question, “What’s in it for me?!” When you are reflecting on course materials from this perspective you want to explore how you can apply the materials to your own life or practice. If you cannot figure out how to apply this to your own work, what could the authors/directors include or address that could better help your work?

Philosophy Queen/King: There are moments when we need to apply philosophy, abstract ideas, and theory to connect what we are reading/watching to great society. As you engage with these materials you will reflect on the following question: “What are the essential ideas that can withstand space and time?”

Investigator: If you choose this lens you gather background information pertaining to the article/topic (e.g., the authors’ previous research into the topic, professional information about the authors, research from citations used in the article, controversial issues surrounding the article, blog posts/comment about the article/topic). The background information is meant to provide more context for the reading. You will need to submit the additional sources of background information with a description of why that information is helpful in better understanding the context of the reading/research.

Creative Connector: Using this lens you will make connections to other important ideas, from both within the class, as well as to other cultural, social, political, and economic ideas. To examine ideas from this perspective you will make at least one of the following connections: Text to world, text to self, text to text.

Critic’s Idea: Do you have another idea for a role you can use to review course materials? Make sure to first describe the lens you will use to review course materials. First thoroughly describe the strategy you will use to engage with the material. Then outline your findings based on this framework.