Final Paper: Choose Your Own Adventure.
The final paper for the course is designed in a “choose your own adventure” format, inviting you to explore an idea in relation to course themes. You can choose between three different formats, picking whichever one appeals to you the most. I’ve designed these keeping in mind that we all need to cultivate a little lightness and fun in our lives just now, and I don’t want you to be saddled with a serious end-of-term paper should you not be in the mood to write one (but of course, you always choose that route if you feel like it!) You will be expected to submit a proposal by the end of Week 4, and you will have till the end of Week 6 to finish writing your paper and your short reflection on your paper. Rubrics will be released in Week 4.
So, what are your options?
Option 1: Ethnography of an Instagram Influencer
Do you like instagram? Do you follow (and maybe hate-watch the content of) influencers? Then this is the paper for you. Write a 1200 word paper discussing how an instagram influencer of your choice creates and circulates value. In order to do this, you will have to conduct a mini-online ethnography, going on to instagram, choosing your favorite (or least favorite!) celebrity influencer, and analyze how they talk about themselves and their product placements. Include their pictures, captions, the comments and their responses in your analysis. What are the kinds of value creation taking place? How does their content increase their social status? What are the social relations that they create between people, and between objects, in their work of “influencing”?
Use the readings and lecture from Week 2 and Week 4 to guide you in your analysis.
Resource: use these guidelines (Links to an external site.) if this is your first anthropology class/first ethnography paper.
Option 2: Speculative Fiction on The Future Economy
Do you like reading fantasy or speculative fiction? Then maybe this option will speak to you. Write a 1,200 speculative fiction short story that address the themes of the class, imagining alternative economic and social relations. Your story can be either utopian or dystopian, set in the past or the future. Make sure to speak to the topics covered in this class!
Use the readings and lecture material from Week 1 and Week 5 to guide you about alternative economies and economic relations in non-western societies.
Resource: listen to this discussion on solarpunk literature (Links to an external site.) for ideas!
Option 3: Analyze any of the In The News prompts in detail
If writing academic papers is your strong suit, this final option is for you. Write a 1200 word final paper, using any of the phenomena we are discussing in our weekly prompts, but analyze it more comprehensively. Consider the way in which the issue you choose impacts different sections of people in the economy differently, depending on their class caste and gender. For example your paper could analyze the Immunity Certificates, exploring its politics; or do a deep dive into the social economy of Animal Crossing during the pandemic.
Readings from all the weeks are relevant, choose one or two weeks to narrow your focus.
Resource: Use your wonderful discussion board posts as a starting off point! Think of it as a community resource!
What about the proposal?
The proposal for your final paper is due as an assignment in Week 4. This means that by the end of Week 4, you need to:
- Pick one of the three options.
- Write 300-500 words maximum describing what you want to analyze/write about, so that Emily. This will appear in your Week 4 module as an assignment.
What is the reflection, and how does one do it?
The reflection is the third, and final component of your submission. It is a self-assessment of your learning and engagement in the final paper. You can write about what was easy/hard for you in terms of the analysis you were conducting. If you follow the speculative fiction option, write about how your paper connects to the themes of the class. This is not meant to be written in formal academic language. You can write it as a message to me like you would a discussion board post. The reflection does not have to be more than 150-200 words.
How is this being graded?
The final is worth 100 points in total, the grade for the final is broken up into three components:
- The proposal is worth 20 points
- The final paper is worth 70 points
- The reflection is worth 10 points
