Bi4224 Environmental anthropology

Faculty of Science
Spring 2025
Extent and Intensity
2/0/0. 4 credit(s). Type of Completion: zk (examination).
Synchronous online teaching
Teacher(s)
Paride Bollettin, MSc., Ph.D. (lecturer)
Kelly Marie Sambucci (lecturer)
Guaranteed by
Paride Bollettin, MSc., Ph.D.
Department of Anthropology – Biology Section – Faculty of Science
Contact Person: Paride Bollettin, MSc., Ph.D.
Supplier department: Department of Anthropology – Biology Section – Faculty of Science
Prerequisites
The course does not require any prerequisite.
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is also offered to the students of the fields other than those the course is directly associated with.
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
Course objectives
The course aims at making students able to observe, study, and discuss the complex interactions intermingling humans and their biosocial environments. The course will be offered virtually and it will be open also for students from universities in Brazil, Uganda and Namibia, so offering the opportunity for the participants to join colleagues from other continents in shared reflections.
Learning outcomes
Trough the course, students will acquire basic knowledge on:
1) the diverse ways of situate human-environment relations along the history of anthropological debates;
2) alternative, culturally grounded, forms of experiencing the environment in diverse societies;
3) current debates on the complexity of human-environment interactions with an eye on the ecological and health crisis.
Syllabus
  • Course program:

    Core topics to be discussed are (while not limited to):
    Introduction to the topic people-environment
    Differences in environment experiences
    Relations people-environment-health
    Multispecies experiences and health
    Environmental inequalities and environmental racism

    Specific readings will be indicated at the beginning of the semester and available to the participants

    Additional suggested materials:
    Ampumuza and Driessen. 2021. Gorilla habituation and the role of animal agency in conservation and tourism development at Bwindi, South Western Uganda. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 4(4): 1601-1621.
    Benezra, Amber. 2020. Race in the Microbiome. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 45(5): 877-902.
    Blue, Gwendolyn and Rock, Melanie. 2020. Genomic trans-biopolitics: Why more-than-human geography is critical amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Dialogues in Human Geography 10(2): 287–290.
    Brown, Kate. 2019. Learning to Read the Great Chernobyl Acceleration. Current Anthropology 60(20): 198-208.
    Calkins, Sandra. 2019. ‘Bananas, Humanitarian Biotech, and Human-Plant Histories in Uganda’. Medicine Anthropology Theory 6 (3): 29–53.
    Ingold, Tim. 2013. Dreaming of dragons: on the imagination of real life. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 19: 734-752.
    Karera, Axelle. 2019. Blackness and the Pitfalls of Anthropocene Ethics. Critical Philosophy of Race 7(1): 32-56.
    Krenak, Ailton. 2022. Thinking With Your Head on Earth. In Luca Bacchini, Victoria Saramago (eds.). Literature Beyond the Human: Post-Anthropocentric Brazil, 235-239. New York: Routledge.
    Laine and Morand. 2020. Linking humans, their animals, and the environment again: a decolonized and more-than-human approach to “One Health”. Parasite 27(55).
    Reis-Castro, Luisa. 2021. Becoming Without: Making Transgenic Mosquitoes and Disease Control in Brazil. Environmental Humanities 13(2): 323-347.

Teaching methods
The classes will be held online (platform will be indicated), with introducing presentations and collective discussions.
Additionally, every week we will develop collective on line exercises (platform will be indicated) to introduce the different topics.
Assessment methods
Students will be asked to produce a a collective exercise.
At the beginning of the course we will create groups joining students from diverse involved institutions for the realization of tese exercises and we will provide all the relative instructions.
Language of instruction
English
Further comments (probably available only in Czech)
Study Materials
The course is taught annually.
The course is taught: every other week.
Teacher's information
Paride Bollettin: https://www.muni.cz/en/people/247100-paride-bollettin
The course is also listed under the following terms Spring 2022, Spring 2023, Spring 2024.
  • Enrolment Statistics (recent)
  • Permalink: https://is.muni.cz/course/sci/spring2025/Bi4224