Final exam. Post as ‘Private’

Final exam

Post as ‘Private’ categorize under ‘Final’

This final exam will be open from 11:30AM-2:30PM Friday, May 17.  You are, as always, welcome to make this post private.  This post is open book, open note, and open Internet. After checking in to the classroom you are welcome to complete the final blog post in the classroom or at a location of your choosing; no need to check in physically after you are done, but you are asked to send me an email when you have submitted.

Prompt
Answer any 2-3 of the five questions below:

1.  We encountered the Rwandan ‘genocide’ and Goma throughout this semester through our readings Emergency Sex, Crisis Caravan, and That The World May Know.  How has the humanitarian ecosystem changed in the two decades plus since that chapter of world history?
2.  You were each asked to blog and present about a major humanitarian crisis, and as a class we learned a great deal about Yemen, Syria, and Venezuela, for example. Reflecting on what you and your classmates wrote and what we discussed in class, define and discuss the so-called Dunant versus Nightingale debate and how it applies to any of the crises we covered.
3. In class and in writing I have argued (or, rather, repackaged the arguments made by many others) that both racism and sexism are ‘baked into’ our national and global social systems. Summarize your understanding of this argument and recite examples we discussed in class. Given this backdrop, what is (or can) the humanitarian aid sector do to address this history?
4.  Now that we are at the end of the semester, summarize the differences between how the late January ‘you’ and the end-or-semester ‘you’ would define the ‘humanitarian imperative.’  The title of this course is ‘Being and Becoming a Global Citizen’.  Summarize the differences between how the late January ‘you’ and the end-or-semester ‘you’ would define ‘global citizen.’
   
5. From one perspective the humanitarian aid ecosystem is a vast and complicated array of bureaucratically organized entities which all share similar and overlapping missions.  What did you learn about the inherent and inexorable problems that arise when any bureaucracy grows, and how are these problems apparent in the humanitarian aid world? What is the ‘iron cage of rationality’ and how does that play into the issues that all bureaucracies have, especially in the aid sector?
6. Summarize and comment on insights you gained from our many Skype guests.  What did you learn about the ‘iron cage of rationality’, the workings of an unfolding humanitarian response to two cyclones, the supply chain issues of an MSF worker, the PTSD trauma of a humanitarian worker, and so on?

The end.

Rubric
To be clear, though the questions are somewhat broad, and you will be graded according to the SOC rubric that we have used all semester (see below).

Important:  Your grade will depend on how often and well you use course materials (books, articles, lectures, class discussions, insights and comments from our many ‘guests’, etc.) to support your answers.  These are not opinion essays but rather writing that demonstrates a mastery of content you have learned from this course.

• S = demonstration of understanding and application of sociological concepts, theories, etc. germane to the topic, especially those talked about in the text and in class
• O = organization and structure overall; flow of ideas, appropriate and contextualized use of images and videos [not for final exam], proper documentation of sources [for final refer to sources you recall by author and/or title]
• C = analytical creativity; going beyond obvious restatement or simple examples and pushing boundaries of thought and perspective