ANTHUA 321.2
Ideas and Nature and Society: an Introduction to Environmental Anthropology
MONDAY AND WEDNESDAY, 3:30-4:45
Professor Anne Rademacher
Departments of Environmental Studies & Anthropology
285 Mercer 906
Office Hours by Appointment
We live in an age that is increasingly referred to as the Anthropocene. Terms like “sustainability” and “greening” animate modern life, and suggest possible antidotes to the anxieties that follow a future marked by rapid, global environmental change. But how do different social groups characterize, and experience environmental change? Why does this matter for our environmental future?
In thiscourse, we will use the analytical tools of anthropology to investigate the relationship between humans and their environment. We will consider geographic and cultural contexts, structures of inequality, and the ever-changing relationship between “nature” and “culture.” Drawing together classical anthropological texts and some of the newest debates in the field of Environmental Anthropology, we will consider how different groups of humans imagine, produce and protect the environment.
Nature and culture are embedded in political economic structures- of trade, investment, science and property. In the second part of thecourse, we will turn to political ecology, exploring the histories of capitalism and post/colonialism in the production and management of environmental crises. We will ask,How does nature come to be governed, owned and controlled?How are people marginalized by such projects and how do they contest their marginalization? In this section, our study of the environment focuses on the ways that nature and struggles for social justice intersect.
Course Requirements
- Preparation. You must complete all readings before coming to class. You are required to attend every class, and to participate actively in class discussions. Class lectures will be based on the assumption that you have done the reading.
- Reaction Paragraphs. In order to have effective classroom discussions, all students are required to submit a one to two paragraph reaction to the readings on Classes. Your weekly post will engage a key theme, and/or question that pertains to the readings. Posts are due no later than 6pm the day before class.
- Leading Discussion. You will be responsible for leading class discussion during the semester, summarizing key arguments from the readings with an in-class presentation. Along with your presentation, you will compose a three- page write-up, due the day of the presentation.
- Exams. There will be two in-class exams in the course.
- Research Paper. Drawing on the themes and readings of the course, each student will write an original 10-15 page research paper (double-spaced) on an aspect of the course to be announced. You may write a paper on a different topic, if approved by Professor Rademacher. The paper is to be accompanied by an in-class presentation in the last week of classes. Additional deadlines for this assignment can be found in the course syllabus below.
Grading
Reading Reaction posts and Class Participation25%
Leading Discussion (and Assignment)10%
Exams (2 x 20%)40%
Research Paper25%
Honor Code
All written work in this course must be original and composed exclusively by you, the author. You must acknowledge in writing any assistance you receive from the literature, other students, textbooks, internet, or any other source. Plagiarism is a serious offense and will be immediately referred to the Dean’s office. For information on NYU’s policy on academic integrity, visit
DISABILITY DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
Academic accommodations are available to any student with a chronic, psychological, visual, mobility, learning disability, or who is deaf or hard of hearing. Students should please register with the Moses Center for Students with Disabilities at 212-998-4980.
NYU's Henry and Lucy Moses Center for Students with Disabilities
726 Broadway, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10003-6675
Telephone: 212-998- 4980
Voice/TTY Fax: 212-995- 4114
Web site:
COURSE SCHEDULE
Sept 7. Introducing Nature Culture
How do we make the environment? How does the environment make us?
Sept 12. The Nature of Nations
Cronon, W. 1995. "The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature," in Uncommon Ground: toward reinventing nature. Edited by W. Cronon, pp. 69-90. New York: WW Norton.
Candea, Matei. 2010. “I Fell in Love with Carlos Meerkat: Engagement and Detachment in
Human-Animal Relations. American Ethnologist 37 (2): 241-258.
Williams, R. 1980. “Ideas of Nature” in Problems in Materialism and Culture.
Reaction Post on Classes: What is Nature? What is Culture?
Sept 14. Nature in the Anthropocene I
Philo, Chris, and C. Wilbert, eds. 2000.Animal Spaces, Beastly Places - New Geographies of Human-Animal Relations New York: Routledge. Pp 1-36. Available on NYU e-library.
Chakrabarty, Dipesh. 2009. The Climate of History: Four Theses. Critical Inquiry 35 (2): 197-
222.
Sept 19. Nature in the Anthropocene II
“Approaches to the Anthropocene: A Conversation with Philippe Descola and Bruno Latour”:
Kohn, Eduardo. 2009. “A Conversation with Philippe Descola,” Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America: Vol. 7: Iss. 2, Article 1. Available at:
Reaction Post on Classes: What is the Anthropocene? What is Nature in the Anthropocene?
Sept 21. Nature in the Anthropocene III
Ortner, S. 1972. Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture? Feminist Studies 1(2).
Chakrabarty, Dipesh. 2012. “Postcolonial studies and the challenge of climate
change.” New Literary History. 43 (1): 1-18.
Sept 26. Does nature have agency?
Ryan, John Charles. 2012. Passive Flora? Reconsidering Nature’s Agency through Human-Plant Studies (HPS). Societies (2): 101-121.
Reaction Post on Classes: Do humans construct their environment?
Sept 28. Does nature do boundary work?
Dove and Carpenter. 2010. How Cattle Problematize the Nature Culture Divide (pp 1-16).
Evans-Pritchard. Interest in Cattle.
Harris, M., et al. 1966. The Cultural Ecology of India's Sacred Cattle.
October 3. Structure, agency, and the human-animal interface
Hansen Paul “Hokkaido’s Frontiers: Blurred Embodiments, Shared Affects and the Evolution of Dairy Farming’s Animal-Human-Machine.” Critique of Anthropology 34 (1): 48–72.
Otelaar, Gerald A. 2014. Worldviews and Human-Animal Relations: Critical Perspectives on Bison-Human Relations among the Euro-Candians and Blackfoot. Critique of Anthropology 34 (1): 94-112.
Reaction Post on Classes: Is nature a boundary object?
Researching and writing your research paper: Is Google “research?”
October 5. Can the Microbe Speak?Revisiting agency for nature
Singer, Merrill. 2014. Zoonotic Ecosyndemics and Multispecies Ethnography. Anthropological Quarterly 87 (4): 1279-1309.
October 10. How has culture figured in the history of science? How has science figured in the history of the concept of culture?
Moran, Emilio.Ecosystem Ecology in Biology and Anthropology.The Environment in Anthropology, Pp. 15-26.
Steward, J. The Concept and Method of Cultural Ecology. The Environment in Anthropology, Pp. 5-9.
Recommended if you are curious: Barth, F. Ecological Relationships of Ethnic Groups in Swat
Recommended if you are curious: Geertz, C. The Wet and the Dry: Traditional Irrigation in Bali and Morocco
Reaction Post on Classes: How should we study the environment? Why?
October 12. Human Populationand the idea of Carrying Capacity
Malthus, T. 1798. An essay on the Principle of Population.
Rappaport, R. Ritual Regulation of Environmental Relations among a New Guinea People.
Brown et. al. Beyond Mathus: Sixteen Dimensions of the Population Problem. The Environment in Anthropology, Pp. 80-86.
October 17. The Commons
Hardin, G. The Tragedy of the Commons.
Conklin, H. An Ethnoecological Approach to Shifting Agriculture.
October 19. Troubling the Commons?
Dove, M. R., and D. M. Kammen. 1997. The Epistemology of Sustainable Resource Use: Managing Forest Products, Swiddens, and High-Yielding Variety Crops. Human Organization 56:91-101.
Recommended if you are curious: Nazarea, V. A View from a Point: Ethnoecology as a Situated Knowledge. The Environment in Anthropology, Pp. 34-39.
October 24. Mid-term
In Class Midterm
October 26. Toward Political Ecology: Uncertainty and Environmental Crises
Thompson, M., M. Warburton, and T. Hatley. 1985. Uncertainty on a Himalayan Scale. Mountain Research and Development 5 (2): 115-135
Stonich and DeWelt. The Political Ecology of Deforestation in Honduras. Chapter 27 of The Environment in Anthropology, pp. 284-301.
If you are interested, further reading: Blaikie, P. and H. Brookfield. 1985. Land Degradation and Society. (1-26)
Assignment: Research paper abstracts due in class on March 28.
October 31. Environmentalism and its Histories
Grove, R. 1990. The origins of environmentalism.Nature 345:11-14.
Neumann, R. P. 1996. Dukes, earls and ersatz Edens: aristocratic nature preservationists in colonial Africa. Environment and Planning D-Society & Space 14:79-98.
Beinart, W. 2000. African History and Environmental History. African Affairs 269-302.
Nov 2.Institutions and Environmental Problems
Fairhead, J., and M. Leach. 1995. Reading Forest History Backwards: The Interaction of Policy and Local Land Use in Guinea's Forest-Savanna Mosaic, 1893-1993. Environment and History 1:55-91.
Saberwal, V. 2000. Ecological Uncertainty, Institutions and Myths. Seminar 486.
Nov 7. Environmental Justice: Culture, Power, History
Peet and Watts. Liberation Ecologies.
Ferguson and Lohmann. The Antipolitics Machine.The Environment in Anthropology, Pp. 163-172.
Hill, Kevin. Conflicts over Development and Environmental Values: The International Ivory Trade in Zimbabwe’s Historical Context. The Environment in Anthropology, Pp. 215-225.
Reaction Post: What key concepts separate environmental anthropology (as we established it in the first half of the course) from political ecology (as it is taking shape in our readings since the mid-term)?
Nov 9. A more-than-human environmental justice?
Harvey, D. 1996. "The Environment of Justice," in Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference. Malden: Blackwell.
Nov 14. Case Study: Can environmental professionals be activists?
Assignment due. 2 page research paper proposal plus bibliographydue in class.
Nov 16. Case Study: What to do after a natural disaster
Guest Lecture: Liz Kozlov, NYU Sociology. Political Ecology and Post-Sandy Recovery in Staten Island, New York.
*Reaction Post: In light of the Checker and Farbotko readings, whatis environmental justice?
Nov 21. Indigeneity and Environmental Movements
To organize: class screening of the new release of The Jungle Book
McBratney, J. 1992. Imperial Subjects, Imperial Space in Kipling's "Jungle Book" Victorian Studies, Vol. 35, No. 3 (Spring, 1992), pp. 277-293
White, R. 1995. “Are you an Environmentalist or Do you Work for a Living?”
Nov 23. “Indigeneity” as Strategy?
Li, T. 2010. “Articulating Indigenous Identity in Indonesia.”
Brosius, J. P. 1999. Green Dots, Pink Hearts: Displacing Politics from the Malaysian Rain Forest.
Assignment due. 5 page research paper outline to be submitted via email.
Nov 28. Knowing Nature
Reread: White, R. 1995. “Are you an Environmentalist or Do you Work for a Living?”
Agrawal, A. 1995. Dismantling the Divide between indigenous and scientific knowledge. Development and Change:413-439.
Nov 30.
In-Class Student Presentations
Dec 5 & 7.
In-Class Student Presentations
Dec 12.
In-class final exam
Dec 15.
Assignment. Final Papers Due.