Nicole Peterson
Barnard College
Spring 2007
This course considers how studies of culture and social life
can inform our understanding of three crucial questions in environmental
studies:
Environmental anthropology has itself changed over time to
reflect larger theoretical trends in anthropology and other sciences;
appreciating this history is necessary for understanding how we got where we
are and where we might go from here. With this in mind, we will read some
seminal texts in environmental anthropology and at the same time use the ideas
from these texts to address current debates about the environment, including
marine resource depletion, deforestation, climate change, and others.
Specific topics in environmental anthropology have emerged
to offer various perspectives on how people interact with their environments.
These include discussions of sustainability and development, wealth
inequalities, political relationships, gender relations, and globalization.
Many studies attempt to understand the influence of these factors on the
interactions between humans and their environments; we will address each of
these in turn.
Students will be expected to have completed all readings assigned for each date by the start of class that day. Any changes to the syllabus will be announced in class and through courseworks.
Students will have three exams during this course, which will count for the majority of their grade. Midterms 1 and 2 will be worth 25% each of the final grade. The final exam will be worth 40% of the final grade. I will also assign a participation grade to each student, worth 10% of the final grade; this will be based on in-class participation during discussions.
Required books:
1. Orlove, Ben.
2002. Lines in the Water: Nature and Culture at Lake Titicaca. UC Press.
2. Schroeder, Richard A. 1999. Shady Practices:
Agroforestry and Gender Politics in The Gambia. UC Press.
3. West, C.
Paige. 2006. Conservation is our Government Now. Duke U Press.
These three books are available at Labyrinth Books at 536 West 112th Street, at Barnard Library reserves, and the first two are available as eBooks through the library website.
All other course readings are all available on Courseworks.
PART 1: FOUNDATIONAL TEXTS
Week 1: Introduction and foundations
1/18 Orlove, Benjamin S. (1980)
"Ecological Anthropology," Annual Review of Anthropology 9:235-273.
Grove, Richard H., 1992 (July).
"Origins of Western Environmentalism," Scientific American
267(1):42-47.
Recommended
(available on courseworks):
Steward, Julian.
(1955) ÒThe concept and method of cultural ecology.Ó In Theory of Culture
Change: The Methodology of Multilinear Evolution, Urbana: University of
Illinois Press.
Harris, Marvin.
(1966). "The cultural ecology of India's sacred cattle." Current
Anthropology 7(1):51-66.
Further reading:
Milton, K. 1996, Environmentalism and cultural theory: the role of anthropology in environmental discourse, London and New York: Routldege.
Week 2:
Ecosystems and People
1/23 Moran, E. (1990)
"Ecosystem ecology in biology and anthropology: a critical
assessment", in E. Moran (ed.), The Ecosystem Approach in Anthropology:
From Concept to Practice, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
1/25 Netting, Robert. (1993) Smallholders, householders: farm Families and the Ecology of Intensive Sustainable Agriculture, Prologue, pp. 1-27 and Epilogue, pp. 320-334.
Raffles, Hugh. 2002 In Amazonia,
A Natural History. Selections.
Week 3: Native
environmentalism
1/30 Redford, Kent. 1991.
The Ecologically Noble Savage. Cultural Survival Quartrly 15(1): 46-48.
Gomez-Pompa, Arturo, and Kaus, Andrea. 1992. Taming the Wilderness
Myth. BioScience, 42(4):271-279.
2/1 Parker,
Eugene, Darrell A. Posey, John Frechione and Luiz Francelino De Silva. 1983.
"Resource Exploitation in Amazonia: Ethnoecological Examples from Four Populations." Annals of
Carnegie Museum 52:163-203.
Posey, Darrell A. 1990. "Intellectual Property Rights and Just Compensation for Indigenous Knowledge." Anthropology Today 6(4):13-16.
Week 4:
Ethnoecology
2/6 Harris, M.
- 1974 - "Why a perfect knowledge of all the rules one must know to act
like a native cannot lead to a knowledge of how natives act". Journal
of Anthropological Research 30:242-51.
Michael
Paolisso, 2002, "Blue Crabs and Controversy on the Chesapeake Bay: A
Cultural Model for Understanding Watermen's Reasoning about Blue Crab
Management." Human Organization 61(3): 226- 239.
2/8 Orlove,
Ben. 2002. Lines in the Water: Nature and Culture at Lake Titicaca. UC Press. (includes email discussion
with author)
Midterm 1
PART II: ISSUES IN ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES
Week 5:
Population and Biodiversity
2/13 Lester Brown, Gary
Gardner, Brian Halweil 1999. Chapter 1 of Beyond Malthus:
Nineteen Dimensions of the
Population Challenge
Caroline Bledsoe Fatoumatta Banja
Allan G. Hill Reproductive (2006 [1998]) Mishaps and Western Contraception: An
African Challenge to Fertility Theory. In N. Haenn and R. Wilk, eds. The
Environment in Anthropology. NYU
press.
2/15 Escobar, A. 1998. Whose
knowledge, whose nature? Journal of Political Ecology 5: 54-56.
Pinedo-Vasquez,
Miguel, Jose Barletti Pasqualle, Dennis Del Castillo Torres, and Kevin Coffey
2002. A tradition of Change: The
dynamic relationship between biodiversity and society in sector Muyuy, Peru. Environmental Science and Policy 5 43-53.
Week 6:
Politics and Wealth
2/20 J.B. Greenberg, and T.
K. Park. 1994. "Political Ecology," Journal of Political Ecology 1:1-12
Escobar, Arturo. (1999).
"After nature: Steps to an anti-essentialist political ecology." Current
Anthropology 40(1):1-30.
2/22 M.
Dove. Theories of Swidden Agriculture and the Political Economy of Ignorance.
Agroforestry Systems 1:85- 99. 1983
W. H. Durham. 1995 Political Ecology and Environmental
Destruction in Latin America. Chapter 7. in M. Painter and W. H. Durham (Eds).
The Social Causes of Environmental Destruction in Latin America. Ann. Arbor:
University of Michigan Press
Week 7: Gender
and the Environment
2/27 D.
Rochelau, B. Thomas-Slayter, and E. Wangari. Gender and Environment: A Feminist
Political Ecology Perspective. In D. Rochelau, B. Thomas-Slayter, and E.
Wangari (Eds). pages 3- 23. Feminist Political Ecology. Routledge. 1996.
Schroeder, Richard A.
1999. Shady Practices: Agroforestry and Gender Politics in The Gambia. UC Press. Selections.
3/1 Elizabeth
Harrison. 1997. ÒFish, Feminists and the FAO: Translating ÔGenderÕ Through
Different Institutions in the Development Process.Ó In Anne Marie Goetz, ed. Getting
Institutions Right for Women in Development. New York: Zed Books, pps. 61-74
Agarwal, B 1998. The gender and
environment debate: Lessons from India. In: The women, gender, and
development reader, M Visvanathan, et al.,
eds. London: Zed, pp. 68-74.
Week 8:
Property and the commons
3/6 The Tragedy
of the Commons. G. Hardin. 1968. Science
162: 1243-8.
The Benefits of the Commons. F. Berkes, D. Feeny, B. J.
McCay, and J. M. Acheson. 1989. Nature
340:91-93.
3/8 S.
Atran et al. Folkecology and commons management in the Maya Lowlands.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 96:7598-7603. 1999.
Acheson, James. Lobster Gangs of
Maine. Selections.
No
class 3/13 and 3/15 – spring break
PART III: LOCAL INVOLVEMENT
Week 9:
Community Participation
3/20 Agrawal, A. and C.
Gibson (1999). "Enchantment and Disenchantment: The Role of Community in
Natural Resource Conservation." World Development 27 (4): 629-649.
A. Kaus. 1993. Environmental perceptions and social
relations in the Mapim’ Biosphere Reserve. Conservation Biology 7: 398-406.
3/22 Little, Peter. 1994. The Link Between Local Participation and Improved Conservation: A Review of Issues and Experiences. In Natural Connections: Perspectives in Community-Based Conservation. D. Western and M. Wright, eds. Pp. 347-372. Washington, DC: Island Press.
F. Berkes. 2004. Rethinking Community-Based Conservation. Conservation
Biology 18: 621-30.
Week 10:
Conservation and development
3/27 Brechin, Steven R.,
Peter R. Wilshusen, Crystal L. Fortwangler, and Patrick C. West. Beyond the
Square Wheel: Toward a More Comprehensive Understanding of Biodiversity Conservation
as Social and Political Process. Soc Nat Resource 15:41
Brosius, Peter, et al. 1998. Representing Communities: Histories and Politics of Community-Based Natural Resource Management. Society and Natural Resources 11: 157-168.
3/29 West, C. Paige. 2006 Conservation
is our Government Now. Duke U Press.
Midterm 2
PART IV:
NON-LOCAL INVOLVEMENT
Weeks 11:
Global Environments
4/3 Neumann,
Roderick P. and Richard A. Schroeder. October 1995. Manifest Ecological
Destinies: Local Rights and Global Environmental Agendas. Antipode 27 (4):
321-324.
Gupta, A. 1998 Peasants and global environmentalism. Chapter 5 in Postcolonial Developments: Agriculture in the Making of Modern India. Duke.
4/5 Forsyth, T 2003. The globalization of environmental risk. In: Critical political ecology: The politics of environmental science. London: Routledge, pp. 168-201.
George Collier, Daniel Mountjoy, and Ron Nigh, "Peasant Agriculture and Global Change: A Maya Response to Energy Development in Southeastern Mexico," Bioscience 44, no. 6: 406
Film: DarwinÕs Nightmare
Week 12: Climate and Society
4/10 Sarah
Strauss and Ben Orlove 2003 Up in the Air: The Anthropology of Weather and
Climate. In S Strauss and B Orlove eds. Weather, climate, culture Oxford. Berg.
Tim Finan 2003. Climate Science and the Policy of Drought Mitigation in Cear‡, Northeast Brazil. In S Strauss and B Orlove eds. Weather, climate, culture Oxford. Berg.
4/12 Magistro J, Roncoli C. 2001. Anthropological perspectives and policy implications of climate change research. Climate Research 19(2) CR Special 11 pp.91-96
Week 13: Environmental Justice
4/17 Rees, WE and L. Westra. 2003. When Consumption Does Violence: Can There be Sustainability and Environmental Justice in a Resource-limited World? In Just Sustainabilities: Development in an Unequal World. J Agyeman, RD Bullard and B Evans (eds.) London: Earthscan Publications Ltd.
Zerner, C. 2000. Justice and Conservation: Toward a Broader Vision of Justice and Conservation, pp. 3-17. In People, Plants, and Justice: The Politics of Nature Conservation, C. Zerner, (ed.) New York: Columbia University Press.
4/19 Guest speaker: Melissa Checker
Checker, Melissa A. 2005. Polluted Promises. NYU Press. Selections.
Week 14:
Sustainable actions
4/24 S. Stonich, J. H. Sorensen, and G. W. Salbador. Water, Power, and Environmental Health in Tourism Development: The Bay Islands, Honduras. pp. 263-284. in J. M. Donahue and B. R. Johnston (Eds) Water, Culture, and Power. Island Press.
Cohen, E. 2002 Authenticity, Equity and Sustainability in Tourism. Journal of Sustainable Tourism. 10 (4): 267–276.
Charnley, S. From Nature Tourism to
Ecotourism? The Case of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania. Human
Organization 64(1): 75-88.
4/26 D. Elgin. Voluntary simplicity and the new global challenge. Pp. 458-468 in The environment in anthropology: A reader in ecology, culture, and sustainable living. N. Haenn and R. R. Wilk, eds. New York: New York University Press.
Robert E. O'Connor, R.J.
Bord, B. Yarnal, and N. Wiefek, 2002, "Who Wants to Reduce Greenhouse Gas
Emissions?" Social Science Quarterly 83(1): 1 -17.
Final
exam