ANTH 112.20 Introduction to Socio-Cultural Anthropology
Winter 2018
Critical cultural relativity: Child labour
Thursday January 11, 2018

Is child labour good or bad?

Preparation: Students read
    Introduction to Anthropology Course Notes, especially the discussions of cultural relativity, critical cultural relativity and engaged anthropology
Watch:
    A)- A North American case: Knowledge Essentials/Children’s Chores: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGMI3zwG_rY
    B) - International labour organization video: The Road to 2016: Towards the End of Child Labour https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dc5QuTVb_6k
    C) - Child workers and their union in Bolivia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=um9q_SzrH5k


Students work in groups to answer the following questions, recording the answers on a piece of paper with the first and last names of all group members. This will be submitted to me, and will form part of your assignments mark.
Think about your own childhood chore experience as well as what the videos present.
    1) What was your initial answer to the question of whether child labour was good or bad? How many in your group thought it was good and how many thought it was bad?
    2) Taking a critical cultural relativist position, does your group think the child work described in video A is good or bad? Why/why not?
    3) Taking a critical cultural relativist position, does your group think the child work described in video B is good or bad? Why/why not?
    4) Taking a critical cultural relativist position, does your group think the child work described in video C is good or bad? Why/why not?
    5) Looking over your discussion of the cases, and keeping critical cultural relativity in mind, what do you conclude about where the problem lies with child labour? Do you still agree with your initial response? What might be done to address the problems?