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War and Peace in Europe

This course is concerned with the impact of war and with the struggle for peace, with Europe as the focus region. With its distinct history of national powerplays, political alliances, competing world empires and fascist forms of extreme nationalism, the “old continent” serves as a focal point for applied research and en passant learning of what war really means and how peace can be secured.

Ever since the second world war (WWII), Europe has transitioned from a continent of hostile enemies to a union of like-minded countries. Dividing borders have turned into connecting bridges, language barriers have become a cultural treasure, and the European Union (EU) has taken up a number of state responsibilities that used to be strictly reserved for national governments.

Yet, the growing influence of populist leaders, renewed tendencies of closing borders, and the devastating war that Russia has waged on Ukraine are a stark reminder that the peace which Europe has achieved over decades is not “perpetual”, as Immanuel Kant had said, but still fragile and in constant need of protection and promotion. The course therefore not only confronts students with theoretic understandings from peace and conflict studies, but also supplements such knowledge with first-hand experiences by visiting various sites of commemoration of war and peace in Europe in a unique, and probably unforgettable, way.

The trip will present students the prodigious and horrible aspects of Europe’s past and present in a fascinating and long-lasting manner. While the first two weeks will focus on Germany, with Berlin, Leipzig, Nuremberg and Cologne as host cities, the third week will be in Belgium with a focus on Brussels and a one-day excursion to the “Flanders fields” near Ypres.

This course is offered in English to undergraduate students from May 3, 2025 to May 23, 2025.

P.S. : Please note that dates are subject to change, especially preparatory meetings dates.

Professor's contact information

Jan Völkel
Graduate School of Public and International Affairs

E-mail: [email protected]
Room: FSS 6081

Office hours: Wednesdays 9:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m., or by appointment.

Course outline

• Belgium / Germany 2025 (PDF, 0.2 MB)

Anthropology of medicine - Field Research Course Cameroon

This field research course in anthropology of medicine is bilingual (French and English) and covers themes such as global health, pandemics, witchcraft, biopower, medical pluralism, immunity, sound and performative therapies, humanitarian and indigenous health. Through anthropological approaches it explores ancestral and contemporary medicine at the heart of their Cameroonian practices with a focus in Bantu medicine. Known as “Africa in miniature”, Cameroon assembles people from all of Africa enabling to understand a panoply of medical traditions, including biomedical ones, in their indissociable cultural, epistemological, political and environmental assemblages.

The host institution Association for Research in Anthropology of Traditional medicine (ARAM, www.aram-vie.org) in Etoa, Yaoundé is a place to stock medicinal plants, prepare remedies, for consultations and for healing. Roger Amos Kañaa is the director and main Bantu healer of the association formed by a permanent team, and which represents a Cameroonian conservative current of ancestral medicinal practices from plants, minerals and others, aiming to better the life of the ill organism. Hence the students will participate in a lively manner to the understanding of his expertise, enabling them to learn from experience as people come to consult him. 

The headquarters of ARAM provides a place to live, to receive guests, and this where the Open House will occur at the end of the course. This practical way of ARAM continues on 3 sites (Antennas) where other there are other host teams. Antenna Lamal Pouguè in the forest of Bassinglègè and Antenna Makak in the forest of Guatè, are situated in the Central region of Cameroun in the Department Nyong-et-Kellé, respectively at 70 and 150 km from Yaoundé in the direction of Douala; they are strong links of reforestation, regenation and sustainability of medicinal plants enabling to follow the process from collection of plants to their transformation into remedies. Antenna Kribi is on the coast of Cameroon South of Douala and enables participation to some sound therapy practices of the Madjan tradition, with their musicians and traditional instruments.

This course is a bilingual course offered in French and English to undergraduate students from May 20, 2025 to June 10, 2025.

P.S. : Please note that dates are subject to change and will be finalized in October.

Professor's contact information

Julie Laplante
School of Sociological and Anthropological Studies

E-mail: [email protected]

Office hours : By appointment

Course outline

• Cameroon 2025 (PDF, 0.2 MB)

Legal and Criminological perspectives on wrongful convictions

This course will allow students to gain a greater understanding of the phenomenon of wrongful convictions, and their sequela, as they occur in Canada and in the state of Louisiana.  Students’ experiences in this field research course will be both pedagogical and practical. Classroom instruction will provide students with an introduction to wrongful convictions as well as provide a greater understanding of how they may occur within both Canadian and American criminal justice systems.  

Students will be exposed to research on the many contributing factors to wrongful conviction, including eyewitness misidentification, the role of jailhouse informants, false confessions, police/prosecutorial misconduct and faulty forensic science and expert testimony. The course will also focus on wrongful convictions as they occur in the southern United States and on the role of the death penalty.  In addition to classroom instructions, students will undertake a field placement in a community organization in New Orleans Parrish that focuses on wrongful convictions, their aftermath and related issues.  Combining a field placement with classroom instruction will provide the students with a theoretical and practical understanding of how the criminal justice system can both create and address miscarriages of justice.

This course is offered in English to undergraduate students from May 3, 2025 to May 24, 2025.

P.S. : Please note that dates are subject to change and will be finalized in October.

Professor's contact information

Kathryn M. Campbell
Department of Criminology

E-mail: katcampOttawa.ca
Telephone: 613-562-5800 ext. 1818
Room: FSS 14039

Office hours : Mondays 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. (or by appointment)

Course outline

• United States 2025 (PDF, 0.2 MB)

Engaged research-creation for multispecies justice: Changing representations of an “invasive” plant in Ottawa

The exceptionally poor air quality in Ottawa in June 2023, caused by forest fires in northern Quebec, was a stark reminder of our vulnerability to the environmental degradation caused by the extractive industry. These fires, it should be stressed, were not just the product of global warming, but also of the forestry industry, which prioritizes the cultivation of highly flammable spruce monocultures over the regeneration of biodiverse forests that are far less so. Of course, the idea that our well-being is fundamentally linked to that of other species in our environment, whether animal, plant or mineral, is far from new. For the Anishinaabe people, the guardians of the unceded territory our university occupies, it has been a key notion for millennia. However, the more recent increase of anthropogenic environmental disasters has had the effect of making us more and more aware of the undeniable truth of our interdependence with the other forms of life that surround us.

In anthropology, this realization has led to a redefinition of the objects, approaches and methods of ethnographic research, giving rise in particular to the development of the “anthropology of life” (Kohn 2007) approach. This anthropology “is not limited to human beings”, as has generally been the case since the founding of the discipline, “but (...) is interested in the effects of our relations with other types of living beings” (Kohn 2007, p. 4). The methodology advocated to take better account of these interspecies relationships is “multi-species ethnography” (Kirksey and Helmreich 2010), i.e., an ethnography devoted to “contact zones” where it is impossible to distinguish what is “culture” (human perception or action) from what is “nature'” (which remains independent of our human perceptions and actions). Spruce monocultures are a good example. These cultivated forests are neither completely natural nor completely artificial. In these spaces that are both wild and cultivated, multispecies ethnographers strive to develop “the art of noticing” (Tsing 2015) both conventionally valued life forms (such as so-called “native plants”) and those that are ignored or actively detested (such as so-called “invasive plants”). Faced with the realization that our relationships with all these life forms are far from equal, a number of multispecies researchers are drawing on older critical approaches (such as feminist studies) to shed light on what underlies the prioritization of the well-being of one form of life over another (Petitt 2023). Some of them also practise more engaged forms of research, as they not only document or theorize these situations of inequality, but also attempt to make a significant contribution to “multi-species justice” (Chao, Bolender, and Kirksey 2022; Celermajer et al. 2021).

The aim of this course is to introduce students to the notion of “multi-species justice,” to critical multi-species ethnography and to the practices of engaged research creation that sometimes accompany it, based on a field study of the interrelationships between a plant that is conventionally considered “invasive,” Japanese knotweed, and environmental protection stakeholders in the Gatineau-Ottawa region. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which classifies knotweed as one of the world's 100 species of greatest concern, defines an “invasive alien species” as one that has been introduced by humans outside its natural range, and whose establishment and spread threaten ecosystems, habitats or so-called “native” species with negative ecological, economic or health consequences (IUCN 2000). Japanese knotweeds, however, are not without their qualities, including the ability to stabilize contaminants in polluted soils. This course will examine the relationship between environmental protection stakeholders in the Gatineau-Ottawa region and Japanese knotweeds, and the ideological, socio-economic, legislative and political contexts in which these relationships take form. We will then present the results of our investigation to these stakeholders in the form of a story, an exhibition or some other artistic intervention, so as to generate discussion on the type of relationships that would be more desirable to cultivate with this plant, given both, among other things, its “invasive” nature and its ability to regenerate contaminated soils.

This course is a bilingual course offered in French and English to undergraduate students from June 23, 2025 to July 11, 2025.

Professor's contact information

Professor Karine Vanthuyne
School of Sociological and Anthropological Studies

Email: [email protected]
Telephone: 613-562-5800 ext. 1193
Room: FSS 10029

Office hours: by appointment

Course outline

• Ottawa 2025 (PDF, 1.5 MB)

Food Politics, Gender and Environmental Justice in Mexico

This three-week field research course in Mexico is an introduction to engaged research methodology, collective knowledge production, and mutual learning. It will focus on food politics, gender issues and environmental justice, in both rural and urban areas. We will have the opportunity to visit various civil society organizations, meaningful sites and communities who are playing a leadership role in their milieu. In Mexico City (CDMX), we will visit the “Central de abastos”, the mega-food market for food provisioning of one of the largest cities in the world, as well as small scale, agroecological food producers, a farmers’ market, and a community garden.

We will also meet activist-researchers to learn about their research and some community initiatives. In so doing, students will be introduced to the extremely complex food networks in Mexico City. They will learn about the different actors and responses that they are promoting to improve the agrifood systems, environmental conditions, and people’s quality of life in this mega-city.

We will then travel to Oaxaca where we will pursue our learning activities with various guest speakers and visits, but this time in rural areas, including Indigenous (mining) communities, fair trade coffee and artisanal mezcal producers. Gender, food and environmental justice perspectives will help us to deepen our understanding of the working conditions, the cultural riches, and the challenges of members of the communities we will have the privilege to exchange with.  During visits, students will be invited to familiarize themselves with (non)participant observation, note-taking, oral history, and interview technics. Class discussions and debriefing will help to prepare for community visits, and to think critically about the different topics for final research projects. In small groups, students will have the opportunity to lead an interview with one of the partners’ organizations. Translation will be provided as needed.

This course is offered in English to undergraduate students from May 5 - 25, 2025.

P.S. : Please note that dates are subject to change and will be finalized in October. 

Professor's contact information

Marie-Josée Massicotte
School of Political Studies

E-mail: [email protected]
Telephone: 613 562 5800 ext. 1273
Room: FSS 7041

Office hours: Thursdays 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. (Preferably by appointment)

Course outline

• Mexico 2025 (PDF, 1.5 MB)

• Program 2025 (PDF, 0.2 MB) 

Barriers or opportunities? Multilingualism in the socio-educational pathways of young people in Senegal

This 6-credit course analyzes the impact of multilingualism in Africa on individuals' social and educational paths. African societies are characterized by great ethno-linguistic diversity, both across the continent and within individual countries. Most countries have adopted the language of the former colonial power as their national language. In West Africa, this is mainly French (with the exception of Ghana and Gambia), making the region a major player in the international Francophonie. However, French is by far not the language of daily use, and even less the mother tongue of the population. In Senegal, the majority language is Wolof, spoken by almost the entire population, including communities not belonging to the Wolof ethnic group. Other languages spoken within the country and across national borders, such as Fulani and Mandingo, coexist with languages more localized but not exclusive to Senegal, such as Sereer, Diola and Bédik, etc. Over and above identity issues, which are characterized by distinct social and cultural normative universes between ethno-linguistic groups, how is information conveyed in the contemporary globalized context? How does learning take place over the course of an individual's education? What are the modes of intergenerational transmission within families and schools, when individuals belong to diverse universes of meaning and identity?

In schools, French is still the majority language of instruction. As a result, students are forced to learn a language that is not their own. Their socio-cognitive and socio-professional paths will bear the marks of this. How can we avoid the question of language in teaching and learning? What are the socio-cultural characteristics that make it possible to analyze the differences between children and adolescents in their educational paths? Do their parents' and family members' backgrounds shed light on their children's in this respect (language of origin, mastery of French, presence of several languages in the family, etc.)? What weight should be given to the linguistic dimension in explaining the difficulties encountered by young people in their educational and professional careers?

This course is offered in French to undergraduate students from May 12, 2025 to June 6, 2025.

Professor's contact information

Nathalie Mondain
Sociological and Anthropological Studies

Email: [email protected]
Telephone: 613-562-5800 ext. 1269

Office hours: by appointment, please contact by email.  

Course outline

• Senegal 2025 (PDF, 1.5 MB) in French only

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