Current course offerings

Please Note: Course profiles marked as not available may still be in development.

Course description

This course explores contemporary challenges in environmental politics and policy, and pursues questions of how better relations with our natural surroundings may be organized and justified. The first part of the course concentrates on big picture questions: How did we get to such pervasive ecological problems? In what ways are contemporary ideas and ideals about development, growth, and advancement implicated in producing ecological crises? Is this connected with `knowledge-making' in the sciences and social sciences, and if so, how? And what are the main features of how ecological-social relations are politicized? The second part is concerned with ways in which ecological issues become distinctive in political practice and political analysis. By looking at how agents position themselves for example for, or against environmental objectives, we question to what extent conventional assumptions about political orientations may be in the process of changing. As we will see, this also has implications for how we think about and design political analysis. The third part of the course investigates political contestation around selected case examples. From CSG exploration, through agriculture's role in biodiversity maintenance, to climate change, we cover policy responses and political conflict in local, regional, and international settings. Lectures will be open to dialogic engagement; tutorials will be dedicated to deepening lecture topics, and to developing analytical skills required for dealing with the biggest political question facing the world today.

Archived offerings