University of Massachusetts

REQUIRED TEXTS:

Milton, Kay

1995 Environmentalism and Cultural Theory. New York: Routledge.

Course reader, available at Paradise Copies in downtown Northampton

COURSE REQUIREMENTS:

Attendance:

Students are required to come to class prepared to critically discuss readings. This is a small, seminar-style class—your thoughts and experiences are crucial to discussions. Therefore, attendance is mandatory. More than two unexcused absences may result in a lower grade. To excuse an absence, please bring a doctor’s note, jury duty notice, or similar documentation to the instructor.

Written Exercises:

In this course, we will use many short exercises to develop students’ writing as a critical process—a tool for getting more out of readings.

Once a week (roughly), the instructor will pose a question and students will come to the next class with 1-2 pages prepared. Written work should be presentable (good grammar and spelling) because we will share it in small group discussions. It may be typed, word-processed, or neatly handwritten.

Exams:

The two exams each consist of identifications and one or two essay questions. A study guide will be distributed one week before the exams.

Paper:

A 5-7 page paper on a topic discussed with the instructor.

Evaluation:

Each student will have his or her own file folder; assignments will be returned in class in these folders. Grades and absences will be marked in the folder so that students can keep track of how they are doing in the course.

Students will be evaluated as follows:

Written Exercises 30 points

Paper 30 points

Exam #1 20 points

Exam #2 20 points

TOTAL: 100 points

COURSE SCHEDULE AND READINGS:

Week One: Introduction (September 6)

Film: Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control

Week Two: Concepts of Nature and Culture, part 1 (September 11 and 13)

Milton, Chapters 1-2

Week Three: Concepts of Nature and Culture, part 2 (September 18 and 20)

Cronon, William

1996 The Trouble with Wilderness, from Uncommon Ground. (in reader)

Myers, Fred

1989 Burning the Truck and Holding the Country: Pintupi forms of Property and Identity. In We Are Here: Politics of Aboriginal Land Tenure, ed. Edwin Wilmsen. Berkeley: California. (in reader)

Bishop, Peter

1996 Off road: four-wheel drive and the sense of place. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 14:257-271. (in reader)

Week Four: Anthropology & Contemporary Political Ecology (September 25 and 27)

Milton, Chapter 5, 6

Greenberg, J. and T. Park

1994 Political ecology. Journal of Political Ecology 1(1):1-12. (in reader)

Week Five: Conservation, the State, and “Environmentality” (October 2 and 4)

Milton, Ch. 4

Peluso, Nancy

1993 Coercing conservation: the politics of state resource control. Global Environmental Change 3(2). (in reader)

Zerner, Charles

1995 Telling Stories about Biological Diversity. In Valuing Local Knowledge: Indigenous People and Intellectual Property Rights, eds. Stephen Brush & Doreen Stabinsky. Washington, D.C.: Island Press. (in reader)

Week Six: Studying Environmentalism, Part 1 (October 9 and 11)

Brosius, Peter

1999 Analyses and Interventions: Anthropological Engagements with Environmentalism. Current Anthropology 40(3):277-309. (in reader)

Week Seven: Studying Environmental Movements, Part 2 (October 16 and 18)

Guha, Ramachandra

1990 The Unquiet Woods: Ecological Change and Peasant Resistance in the Himalaya. (excerpt in reader)

Shiva, Vandana

1989 Women in the Forest. In Staying Alive: Women, Ecology. Development. London: Zed Books. (in reader)

Week Eight: EXAM #1, Globalization and Consumption (October 23 and 25)

Hartwick, Elaine

1998 Geographies of Consumption: A Commodity-Chain Approach. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 16(4): 423-438.

Week Nine: Globalization and Consumption, cont’d (October 30 and November 1)

Dobson, Andrew, ed.

1991 Selections on “Green Consumerism.” The Green Reader: Essays Toward a Sustainable Society. San Francisco: Mercury House. (in reader)

Harper, Krista

1999 Citizens or Consumers? Environmentalism and the Public Sphere in Postsocialist Hungary. Radical History Review 74: 96-111. (in reader)

Pollan, Michael

2001 Desire: Control/Plant: Potato (in reader).

Week Ten: Culture, Politics, and GMO Foods (November 6 and 8)

Medical Anthropology Quarterly

2001 Exchange on GMO Foods

Franklin, Sarah

2001 Sheepwatching. Anthropology Today. (in reader).

Stille, Alexander

2001 Slow Food: An Italian Answer to Globalization. The Nation August 20/27 (in reader).

Week Eleven: Risk and Culture, part 2 (November 13 and 15)

Douglas, Mary and Aaron Wildavsky

1982 Risk and Culture: An Essay on the Selection of Technological and Environmental Dangers. Berkeley: California. (selections in reader)

Stephens, Sharon

1987 Hard Rain for the Sami. Cultural Survival Quarterly (in reader)

Week Twelve: Risk and Culture, part 2 (November 20)

Wynne, Brian

1989 Sheepfarming After Chernobyl: A Case Study in Communicating Scientific Information. Environment 31(2). (in reader)

THANKSGIVING BREAK

Week Thirteen: The Environmental Justice Movement, Part 1 (November 27 and 29)

Bullard, Robert

1992 Anatomy of Environmental Racism and the Environmental Justice Movement. In Confronting Environmental Racism: Voices from the Grassroots, ed. Robert Bullard. Boston: South End. (in reader)

di Chiro, Giovanna

1996 Nature as Community. In Uncommon Ground, William Cronon, ed. (in reader)

Week Fourteen: The Environmental Justice Movement, Part 2 (December 4 and 6)

PAPERS DUE

Checker, Melissa

2001 “Like Nixon Coming to China”: Finding Common Ground in a Multi-Ethnic Coalition for Environmental Justice. Anthropological Quarterly (in reader).

Week Fifteen: Environmental Justice at Home and Abroad (December 11 and 13)

Milton, Chapter 7

Lynch, Barbara Deutsch

1996 Carribean Environmentalism: An Ambiguous Discourse. In Creating the Countryside: The Politics of Rural and Environmental Discourse, eds. Melanie Dupuis and Peter Vandergeest. Philadelphia: Temple. (in reader)

EXAM #2

Week #	Date	Topic	Assignments DUE	Readings Completed
1 Thurs	9/6	Introductions, Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control
2 Tues	9/11	Concepts of Nature, Part 1: Culture and Environmentalism		Milton, Introduction, Ch. 1
2 Thurs	9/13	Concepts of Nature, Part 1: Culture and Ecology		Milton, Ch. 2
3 Tues	9/18	Concepts of Nature, Part 2: Wilderness		Cronon (r)
3 Thurs	9/20	Concepts of Nature, Part 2: Place and Property		Bishop, Myers (r)
4 Tues	9/25	Anthropology and Contemporary Political Ecology		Milton, Ch. 6, Greenberg and Park (r)
4 Thurs	9/27	Anthropology and Contemporary Political Ecology		Milton, Ch. 5
5 Tues	10/2	Conservation, the State, and “Environmentality”		Milton, Ch. 4
5 Thurs	10/4	Conservation, the State, and “Environmentality”		Peluso (r)
6 Tues	10/9	Conservation, the State, and “Environmentality”		Zerner (r)
6 Thurs	10/11	Studying Environmental Movements, Part 1: Anthro of Environmentalism		Brosius (r)
7 Tues	10/16	Studying Environmental Movements, Part 1: Anthro of Environmentalism
7 Thurs	10/18	Studying Environmental Movements, Part 2: Chipko “Rashomon”		Shiva, Guha (r)
8 Tues	10/23	EXAM #1
8 Thurs	10/25	Globalization and Consumption: Commodity Chains		Hartwick (r)
9 Tues	10/30	Globalization and Consumption: Consumers or Citizens?		Dobson, Harper (r)
9 Thurs	11/1	Culture, Politics, and GMO Foods		Pollan (r)
10 Tues	11/6	Culture, Politics, and GMO Foods: Anthropological Analyses		Medical Anthropology Quarterly, GMO issue (r)
10 Thurs	11/8	Culture, Politics, and GMO Foods: Cloned Sheep and Mad Cows		Franklin, Stille (r)
11 Tues	11/13	Risk and Culture, Part 1: Douglas and Wildavsky		Douglas and Wildavsky (r)
11 Thurs	11/15	Risk and Culture, Part 2: “Chernobyl Stories”		Stephens (r)
12 Tues	11/20	Risk and Culture, Part 2: Learning from Chernobyl		Wynne (r)
Week #	Date	Topic	Assignments DUE	Readings Completed
12 Thurs	11/22	THANKSGIVING DAY—no class!
13 Tues	11/27	The Environmental Justice Movement, Part 1: Race, Class, and Gender		Bullard, Gottlieb (r)
13 Thurs	11/29	TBA
14 Tues	12/4	“New World Disorders”: Current Research on Environment and Health from the 2001 American Anthropo-logical Association Meetings in DC.	PAPERS DUE
14 Thurs	12/6	The Environmental Justice Movement, Part 2: Coalition-Building		Checker (r)
15 Tues	12/11	Environmental Justice at Home and Abroad		Milton, Ch. 7, Lynch (r)
15 Thurs	12/13	EXAM #2

ANTHROPOLOGY 397G:

The Anthropology Of Environmentalism

Dr. Krista Harper