Martin Wilson
SBS 400.01
12/24/12
MLO III Paper
The MLO III requirement for the Social Behavioral Sciences pertains to the
comprehension of at least one of the core disciplines present within our major. In order to meet
this requirement, students are expected to convey an understanding of the relevant paradigms and
literature of the field through the analysis of issues that current scholars in the field are
examining. In addition, students are also expected to effectively execute the process of scholarly
inquiry that pertains to their respective discipline through the completion of 2 types of
deliverables. These include either research projects or presentations that demonstrate the
student’s ability to design, carry out, and present on a topic that is of relevance to their field or
research papers that require students to investigate and elaborate on issues of interest through the
use of scholarly, peer-reviewed literature. Overall, the MLO III requirement allows a students to
develop a background knowledge of the discipline that they are a part of while also actively
exploring subjects that will give them the ability to pursue their desired specialization.
As a student of the social behavioral sciences, I have chosen to pursue the disciplines of
both Anthropology and Political Economy. Broadly defined, Anthropology is the study of
humanity and the human condition. However my emphasis is on the cultural aspect of
anthropology. As a student of this specific sub-discipline of anthropology, I utilize qualitatively
orientated research methods to develop objective understandings of the various traditions, values,
and materials of all human cultures and how those components have facilitated our development
as a species. Our instruction within this concentration involves a mix of lectures and discussions
screenings on various topics of interest, the reading and annotation of scholarly material, active
exercises on methodology, and the articulation of said knowledge through required deliverables.
One such course that I had taken to fulfill this requirement was a summer ethnographic field
research school in Leon, Spain.
During this month long intensive program, a team of 17 researchers engaged in the
exploration of a unique region in Spain called Vegaquemada. This region in particular is a richly
endowed, picturesque area that has suffered a major depopulation in the latter half of the 20th
century. This general depopulation has left the region with a largely elderly, retired constituency
who continue to wither away with the passage of time. Their stories and experiences are
therefore, very value and the responsibility of anthropologists to record and to share. Therefore,
our team engaged in the practice of ethnographic field work, which is a qualitative research
methodology encompassing research tools such as field observation, interviewing, mapping, and
family genealogies. These methods coupled with our immersion into the life and function local
communities of the Vegaquemada region of Leon allowed us to gain a very complex
understanding of the history and culture of the region while exploring the day to day life of those
who inhabited it. For our final deliverable at the conclusion of the program, we were expected to
develop a field report that contextualized the community we were each assigned while also
explaining whatever fieldwork we performed in that community.
Political economy on the other hand, is a discipline that takes analytical frameworks and
issues within the discipline of economics and incorporates forms of political theory and
understanding into them. Although more quantitatively geared, political economics involves a
large amount of reading, annotation, and discussion on various subjects and issues dealing with
the various interactions between labor, state, and capital. With that said, the discipline exposes
me to theorists who applied forms analysis on the understanding of cultural identity, and the
political and economic consequences of various historical cases. One of the courses that is
endemic of this discipline therefore is called History of Economic Thought. In this course, we
were exposed to theorists situated within both polarities of the political economic spectrum in an
effort to grasp how the field of political economics developed. We explored their original
writings in relative depth, explained what their original arguments and in what context they were
made. Then, we delved in the critiques of their works and how their pioneering work laid the
groundwork for the current debates and discussions occurring presently.
The final deliverable in the class involved the application an explanation of that theorist’s
value commitments and arguments, and contextualization and analysis of to a current issue or
topic in political economics. For the first portion of my final deliverable in “History of Economic
Thought”, I explained how the theories of John Stuart Mill (A progressive liberal political
philosopher) and Ema Goldman (A radical political theorist) contrasted on the role of
government, freedom, and authority. In the second section, I contextualized a current debate on
the issue of Foreign aid to countries and whether it promotes the broad economic development of
these counties or contributes to the stagnation of their long-term development.