Political Ecology

Catalog description

Political ecology asks how power mediates human-environment relationships. How do we, as society, understand “the environment,” environmental problems, our role in them, and potential solutions? How have human-environment interactions reproduced inequity related to class, race, gender, and worldview; how does inequity, in turn, relate to environmental realities? Whose environmental “truth” counts, whose doesn’t, and why? Are better futures possible (and who defines “better futures”)? In this course, we will consider these questions and more. We will examine how knowledge production and socio-economic structures and processes relate to environmental change across economic, political, social, and ecological contexts. The first part of the course will introduce political ecology’s roots and major arguments. We will use this foundation to analyze real-world cases and consider the opportunities, or “openings,” for different environmental futures.