Global in the local, local in the global, 5 cr

This course will familiarize students with research on the cultural and social dimensions of environmental change and with the conflicts surrounding it. Drawing on anthropology’s critical empirical approach, it will survey and critically explore the myriad ways in which people and groups around the world have dealt with pressures on and violence to their ways of life and environments. Students will also explore global environmental governance and the often complex situations where global or trans-local discourses and place-based economic, political, technical and moral practices are in tension. In addition to anthropological materials, the course will use sources from cognate disciplines like environmental history, science studies and geography.

Students will also learn about conceptual innovations around environmental change, policy making and politics (planetary boundaries, Anthropocene, broken world thinking, design anthropology, etc.).

Students who successfully complete the course will be able to:

• Understand key political and cultural issues around environmental relations and resource conflicts
• ·Trace the emergence of environmentalism as an actor on the global political stage
• ·Appreciate the politics inherent in environmental fears and so take a critical but constructive approach to environmental problems

After a pre-course reading and a short test on it, the course will continue with 8 teaching sessions. Each of these will consist of a lecture followed by a seminar-style session, during which students will work in groups and make presentations. Final assessment will be by essay (graded 1-5).

The teacher of this course is Eeva Berglund.