The Universal and the Vernacular. The Global Life of Concepts and Social Forms

Mapping and understanding vernacular concepts and terminologies has always been central to the anthropological quest to understand societies from `a native point of view'. This has often been accompanied by a critique of universalist and Euro-centric assumptions in the social sciences and in social theory. As a result, the convention has become to treat the `universal¿ (ideas, frames, institutions) as external, often imposed by colonial powers, while the `vernacular¿ conventionally is seen as local and authentic, and the proper site of anthropology.This course seeks to rethink this spatial and historical distinction between the universal and the vernacular. Instead we ask: how, and when, do concepts, or practices, become embedded in a vernacular world? Reversely, instead of assuming that universals all originate in Euro-America, we ask: how do concepts and practices become both global and universal? We will trace how impactful ideologies, social forms and institutions have travelled in time to become perceived as elements of vernacular cultures. Drawing on ethnographic and historical examples across the world, each week will trace the universal and vernacular lives of important concepts such as: `tradition¿, `the individual¿, `community¿, `the people¿; `humanity¿, `dignity¿; `equality¿, `sacrifice¿, `cosmopolitanism¿, `civility¿.