ANTH 387

Credit: 3 hours.

This course takes an anthropological perspective to challenge "common-sense" notions about crime. We will compare ideas about and representations of lawbreaking, criminality, danger, policing, and violence in different parts of the world, considering how they diverge from, and yet also overlap with, each other. Our goal is to find new ways to understand both how something becomes "crime" and also how it then quickly becomes sensationalized, stereotyped and simplified as it enters public debate.