ANTHROPOLOGY 95A: Culture and Global Environmental Problems
FALL 2008
Course Description
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Environmental degradation is currently one of the most pressing problems facing humanity. This course examines the socio-cultural causes and consequences of environmental degradation around the world, as well as the efforts to solve these problems. We will analyze the increasing globalization of human-nature interactions and environmental degradation, and consider how solutions to environmental problems have dealt (or not dealt) with culturally-distinct definitions of nature and social change. We will do this by examining several case studies of cultural and natural transformations, including (among others) the disappearance of tropical forests, debates surrounding water and biotechnology, population growth, and the relationship of indigenous peoples to economic development processes and ecological change. In the latter part of the course, we will closely examine the political, moral and cultural assumptions and operations of the global environmental movement, especially as it relates to non-Western cultural contexts.
Reflecting the inherently interdisciplinary character of environmental issues, this course also introduces you to social scientific approaches to environmental problems and the study of environmentalism, drawing mainly from the discipline of socio-cultural anthropology, and to a lesser extent from the disciplines of sociology, history, and political-economy. We will learn about and reflect upon the usefulness of basic social theoretical concepts as they apply to knowledge of environmental problems, including theories of human-nature interaction and environmental degradation, the global operations of capitalism, theories of socio-cultural change, and anthropological concepts of 'culture.'
Like the other ISSP courses, this course will provide you with the opportunity to explore the relationships between the social sciences, their various approaches to issues, and contemporary social problems. While we will discuss in detail some of the solutions social scientists have offered to resolve complex environmental problems, the purpose of this course is not to focus simply on policy solutions to environmental degradation. Rather, the purpose of this course is to learn how to approach and reflect creatively and critically upon a number of key issues: increasingly globalized structures of inequality and dependence, the impact of development policies on specific peoples and ecosystems (and the resistance of those people to these policies), the global circulation of scientific knowledge and environmental activism, and processes of socio-cultural transformation in non-Western contexts. In other words, this course does not intend to provide right or wrong answers to the profoundly problematic issues it raises, but through case studies, to introduce and analyze persistent problems and alternatives to solutions that have already been posed.
The following texts are available for purchase at the University Store:
1. Guha (2000) Environmentalism: A Global History. Longman Press.
2. Niezen (2009) Defending the Land: Sovereignty and Forest Life Among the James Bay Cree. 2nd edition. Allyn and Bacon.
3. Reed (2009) Forest Dwellers, Forest Protectors: Indigenous Models for International Development. 2nd edition. Allyn and Bacon.
4. Robbins (2008) Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism. 4th Edition. Allyn and Bacon.