Race and the Environment

Catalog description

This course examines how notions of race, racism, conservation, and the environment have emerged in dialogue and debate with one other in diverse historical contexts. We will draw primarily on case studies from Indigenous and Black communities—in Africa, North America, Latin America, Oceania, and the Caribbean. We will explore some of the following questions. How did European imperialism in Africa and the Americas transform landscapes and notions of ethnic belonging? What forms of expertise have Indigenous and Black communities cultivated about the natural world? How did the making of national parks valorize some uses of nature and criminalize others? What is the relationship between redlining and toxic exposures in the urban US? How has resistance to mining projects transformed political activism among Indigenous communities?