Political Ecology: People, Power, and the Planet

Catalog description

Political ecology is an interdisciplinary field that explores the social, political, economic, and ecological processes underlying resource conflicts. By adopting political ecology as an explanatory framework, we will unpack how knowledge and power, operating under specific political-economic systems, interact to shape resource access, use, control, and management. We will draw on specific case studies of resource conflicts, such as: wildlife management and conservation, conflict minerals and resource curses, immigration and climate change, population pressure and resource scarcity, oil infrastructures and indigenous livelihoods, poverty and environmental degradation, and green energy transitions to ground our readings and discussions. Case studies are primarily drawn from the Global South. Throughout, we will pay attention to how interacting social positions shape the ability of individuals and communities to control and manage resources, answering the following, enduring questions of the field: What are the implications of understanding ecology as explicitly political? How do common assumptions about the nature of nature shape how we interact with and make decisions about the environment? And how do power and difference shape how and who can access, use, and control resources, and to what effect? Satisfies Social and Scientific Thought requirement. Satisfies Justice, Equality and Community requirement.