In our collective ethnography, we draw on and contribute to a body of work from many different people that uses anthropology as a tool of collective learning and transformation. This includes many OER, or Open Educational Resources, educational tools that are freely accessible to the public.

In our coursework, we think critically about knowledge — what it is, who claims the authority to create and control it, and how it affects people and the world. We understand that students, and indeed all people, are active producers and not just passive consumers of knowledge. We also know that some of the best works that help us understand the central questions of anthropology (How do people work together to survive? What makes life meaningful? What does it mean to be biosocial beings?) are created by non-anthropologists, and often people and communities who have been historically harmed or exploited by the discipline of anthropology.

In that spirit, here are some kindred Open Educational Resources that use anthropology, and related disciplines, as tools to reimagine the world.

CUNY Digital History Archive

The historical photographs throughout this website are from the CUNY Digital History Archive, which collects documents and images from CUNY’s history. The archive centers the experiences of students, workers, and community members with the mission of showing CUNY’s democratic history as “the people’s university.”

Anthropology for Kids, Cities Made Differently

This website, inspired by the work of the late anthropologist David Graeber, includes free resources inviting children (and the child in all of us!) to explore the world through accessible anthropological concepts. Most relevant to our project is the coloring book, Cities Made Differently.

Image Analysis Exercise

In 1991, students across CUNY went on strike to protest budget cuts and tuition hikes. They were part of a broad movement urging the government to divest from war and invest in social goods such as healthcare, housing, and education. Students across the CUNY system took over their university buildings. In this image, taken by a CUNY anthropologist, neighbors in Harlem cheer out a window as City College students march by.

Discuss

• What do you notice about this image?
• What questions would you ask to learn more about the image and the historical events depicted?
• Do any of the themes depicted here remind you of current events? In what ways? What is different and what has stayed the same?
• In our course, we learn about labor, the work we do to transform the materials of our environment into the things we need to live. We learn that human labor is inherently social. What kinds of labor are required to run a university? A neighborhood? What kinds of labor go into making social change?
• While CUNY labels itself a “university for the public good,” many of our neighbors do not have access to the resources of this institution, even though our neighbors are a vital part of life in New York. How are educational and other resources divided in society? How do different societies engage in decisionmaking processes and address conflict?
• This photograph was taken by a student anthropologist, who documented the 1991 protest movement. In what ways do you think anthropology can be a vehicle for social change?