Society and Environment

Teacher(s)

Zitouni Benedikte;

Language

English

Prerequisites

The prerequisite(s) for this Teaching Unit (Unité d’enseignement – UE) for the programmes/courses that offer this Teaching Unit are specified at the end of this sheet.

Learning outcomes

At the end of this learning unit, the student is able to :

Recognize the political nature of any environmental discourse as well as its theoretical underpinnings. More particularly, s·he will be able to distinguish between eco-modernism, ecofeminism, decolonial ecology, deep ecology, political ecology (ecomarxism), social ecology (post-state ecology), human ecology and native ecologies. S·he will no longer consider the environmental problem as one that could, given enough information and political will, be resolved in a straightforward manner but s·he will recognize it to be a foremost political, cultural and historical problem that necessarily requires struggle, intervention and debate. This course is definitely an asset for students who are considering pursuing a masters’ degree in environment studies but it is also very useful to students who simply care about environmental problems that involve high societal stakes.

Content

The course starts out by exploring mainstream environmentalism implemented by either national or international institutions through the analysis of their paradigmatic and scientific underpinnings (Earth System Theory, Cybernetics, …). The coming of a new era called the Anthropocene will be presented, as well as the debates surrounding it (alternative naming includes Capitalocene, Eurocene, Gynocene,…) In this first part of the course, attention will be given to the recent rise of Eco-modernism but also to the history of human exceptionalism and some ecofeminist explorations thereof. Overall, this part of the course aims to give a first set of diagnostical bearings in order to face today’s environmental conundrum.  
Next, we’ll dive into the obstacles pointed at by the environmental justice movement, the decolonial movement and several iconic actors of land struggles who have been critical of mainstream environmentalism, some pointing at its colonial roots, others at its conformism. From then on, territorial, cultural and land issues will be very present in the lectures as they reveal the many tensions that exist amongst environmentalists and are also the teachers’ field of expertise.
In the next part of the course which is by far the longest, we’ll have an in-depth look at political ecology or ecomarxism, human and post-human ecology, deep ecology, social ecology or post-state ecology and finally, native ecologies. Each one of these currents forms a theoretical as well as a political endeavour with its own paradigmatic underpinnings.  For each endeavour, a brief historical outline, iconic authors and texts will be presented as well as some of the emblematic empirical cases these authors bring to our attention, and the current or past political movements they have inspired. Overall, we’ll try and assess the possibilities and limitations of the divergent currents in both academic and activist terms as well as the kind of conversations they open up.
! Watch out : At home, parallel to the weekly lectures, the student must also read a dozen of classic articles and book chapters providing a more-in-depth of the stakes and currents explored during the course.

Teaching methods

The course consists of a series of weekly lectures given by the teacher. If possible, invited lecturers will intervene. Also, the possibility will be offered to students who would like to present a book or a case as part of the lecture. Finally, at home, parallel to the weekly lectures, the student must also read a dozen of classic articles and book chapters which will be actively used during the exam.

Evaluation methods

Open-book oral exam.

Other information

Face-to-face teaching. 

Bibliography

Recueil de textes (peut encore être modifié) / Compendium (must be confirmed!):

Carolyn Merchant, 1980, “Mechanism as Power”, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology and the Scientific Revolution, New York: Harper Collins, pp. 216-235.

Philippe Descola, 2013 (F 2005), “The Certainties of Naturalism” in Beyond Nature and Culture, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 172-200

William Cronon, 1996, “The Trouble with Wilderness, or Getting Back to the Wrong Nature”, W. Cronon, ed., Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, Norton & Co, pp. 69-90.

Naomi Klein, 2014, “Hot Money: How Free Market Fundamentalism Helped Overheat the Planet”, This Changes Everything: Capitalism Vs The Climate, New York: Simon & Schuster, pp. 64-95.

Mike Davis, 1998, “The Case for Letting Malibu Burn”, Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster, New York: Vintage Books, pp. 95-146.

Deborah Bird Rose, 2004, “Footprints”, Reports from a Wild Country: Ethics for Decolonisation, Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, pp. 165-178.

Thom Van Dooren, 2014, “Breeding Cranes: The Violent-Care of Captive Life”, Flight Ways: Life and Loss at the Edge of Extinction, Columbia University Press, pp. 87-123.

Jared Diamond, 2005 (1997), “Lethal Gift of Livestock”, Guns, Germs and Steel: a History of Everybody for the last 13,000 years, London: Vintage, pp. 195-214.

Donella Meadows, 1999, “Leverage Points. Places to Intervene in a System.” The Sustainability Institute (first printed in Whole Earth, 1997), pp. 1-19.

David Abram, 1997, The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World. “The Ecology of Magic”. London: Vintage. pp. 3-29.

Chaia Heller, 2005, “Biotechnology, Democracy, and Revolution”, Harbinger — A Journal for Social Ecology (hosted by the Institute of Social Ecology’s website), posted in Jan.

Faculty or entity

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