The global environmental movement and its corollary initiatives of conservation are having dramatic effects on people and places throughout the world. It is amounting to powerful environmentalisms that are invoking a host of discursive and material contestations, ultimately transforming human-environment relations. We are in an environmental epoch, or the “Anthropocene”, as many have begun to call it. It is a period characterized, in part, by conservation complexes that are reframing how we conceptualize ‘nature’, transforming its use and governance, reconfiguring landscapes, and reconstituting identities in the process. Put another way, a whole new form of “eco-governmentality” (Goldman, 2001) has erupted across the world, introducing new technologies of government and self. In most recent forms, ‘selling nature to save it’ (McAfee, 1999) type logics inform ‘neoliberal conservation’ (Igoe and Brockington, 2007) and, likewise, ‘NatureTM Inc.’ initiatives (Büscher et al., 2014). Concomitant to all this, various ‘frictions’ (Tsing, 2005) are emerging as local communities engage with, contest, and appropriate new global flows of capital, ideas, and modes of rule.
This class introduces students to anthropological approaches to the environment and environmentalism, including cultural ecology, political ecology, environmental history, science studies, poststructuralist cultural studies, and environmental justice. Using such frameworks, we will explore the genealogy of conservation, the history of environment and sustainability discourse, and most importantly, the power and politics that animate contemporary opportunities and pitfalls in the field of environmental conservation. Borrowing Donald Moore’s (2005) concept, “Suffering for Territory”, the class will especially focus on how communities are navigating, resisting, and articulating these global projects. The course will include examples from various global contexts, with a special emphasis on Africa.
Format
The course is designed in seminar format, with an emphasis on student participation and class discussion. Each class will include brief lectures to introduce key themes from the class readings, with the remainder of the class dedicated to small and large-group discussions. It represents a rather intensive reading course wherein students are expected to effectively engage the designated class themes, coming prepared each class to share insights, criticism, and questions. The course will include various media review, lectures, guest presentations, and a field engagement with international conservation practitioners. One primary focus in the course is to provide a platform for students to identify, explore and articulate contemporary case studies of environmentalism and conflict. Accordingly, students are expected to identify, present and debate a chosen case study through a presentation and final research paper.
As a follow-up for this course, students can continue in Anthropology, Regional Development (UCSSCGEO32) or Post-colonial Interventions (UCHUMLIT36).
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