The Department of Sociology and Anthropology supports two Specializations within the Bachelor of Global and International Studies (BGInS).
The Specialization in Globalization, Culture and Power will attract students interested in cultural change, cross-cultural understanding, international development, human rights, and social justice. This program will provide students with diverse opportunities for deep engagement with questions of global change.
Anthropology has been at the forefront of the study of globalizing processes –from the analysis of the rise of global institutions, the critique of development practices, and the ongoing documentation of cultural change as economies and populations move and transform. Our concentration, Globalization, Culture, and Power, reflects this tradition. It aims to give students substantial exposure to the main complementary aspects of globalization as we know it today; large transnational movements and institutions, on the one hand, and particular cultures, contexts and struggles on the other.
The Specialization in Global Inequalities and Social Change critically engages major social issues facing the global community today. This Specialization will attract students concerned with understanding structures of injustice, the lived experience of marginalization, and strategies for challenging inequalities. Global Inequalities and Social Change mobilizes sociological and interdisciplinary tools to interpret the social, cultural, political and economic forces that shape relations of power in our globalized world. Indeed, at the core of the sociological tradition is the critical capacity to connect the everyday realities of individuals to larger public issues and problems, while understanding people as active agents of transformation to realize a just world.
This Specialization takes both theoretical and applied approaches to today’s most pressing questions, including class inequality, poverty, and homelessness; political violence and security; colonialism; labour; health; and, various dimensions of identity such as nation/citizenship, race, gender and sexuality. Students of Global Inequalities and Social Changewill also develop knowledge of various forms of resistance to oppression, including social movements like the “Idle No More” or “Occupy” movements, and transnational solidarity. Students will be offered opportunities to learn directly from people working in social justice communities, and may choose to pursue hands-on, community-engaged learning.