1
Power, politics and environmental change
Programme
MA Environmental Humanities 2016-17, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
Course tutor
Christos Zografos, PhD
Institute of Environmental Science & Technology (ICTA), Universitat Autònoma de
Barcelona, Spain
Department of Political and Social Sciences, Pompeu Fabra University (UPF),
Barcelona, Spain
Contact
Email: czografos@gmail.com
Skype: czografos
Website: http://www.eco2bcn.es/people_postdocs.html
Course description
The course explores some key ways in which power influences environmental change
and governance, from an environmental social science perspective. The classes draw
on the disciplines of political ecology, ecological economics, and environmental
history that explain how environmental change is produced and what are its social
implications. The purpose is to develop a critical understanding of environmental
change and the relevance of power and politics in incurring this.
Learning outcomes
After the end of the module, students should be in a position to:
1. Explain how power and politics are useful for understanding and studying
environmental change
2. Use several understandings of how power operates to explain the role politics play
in producing environmental change
Structure of classes
The duration of each class is one-and-a-half hours.
Most classes, i.e. classes 2, 3, 4, and 5 are based on one reading (i.e. journal article or
book chapter) done by students before the class. Students will answer a question
2
(max. 500 words) based on the reading, email their answers to the course tutor until
2 hours before the class (at the latest), and bring their answer in class where some
of them will be asked to present their answers. This will be followed by a 15-20
minutes class discussion on the question, the topics it touches upon and the issues it
raises, which will be based on student answers to the question. The class is
complemented by either a classroom activity or a more ‘traditional’ lecture format in
which the tutor explains further points related to the topic and concludes with a
summary of main points raised with the class.
Class 1 is an introductory class, and Class 6 involves watching a movie in the
classroom and then discussing it; students are not required to read a reading and
answer an assignment question for any of those two classes.
Programme
Class Day Time Room
1 Introduction Mon 7 Nov. 13.30-15.00 Hall
2 Green materialism Tue 8 Nov. 18.45-20.15 P22
3 The power of structures Wed 9 Nov. 15.15-16.45 U33
4 The power from within Thu 10 Nov. 17.00-18.30 P21
5 The power of discourse and incomplete dominations Fri 11 Nov. 15.15-16.45 U32
6 Transforming nature (movie screening class) Mon 14 Nov. 09.45-11.15 P24
Student evaluation
Students will be evaluated by their performance on two evaluation tools:
Evaluation tool Portion of final mark
Final essay 80% of final mark
Class participation (including answers to class questions) 20% of final mark
1. The main student evaluation tool – 80% of final mark – will be a short essay of a
maximum length of 2,000 words (excluding references), which students will
hand in (via email to the course lecturer) by end of day Monday 9 January 2017.
Essays submitted later than that date will not be accepted for marking; students
who do not submit an essay will fail the course. If you submit the essay but fail to
score more than 50% of the final mark to pass the course, you will be given the
chance to write a short essay and pass the course.
You can either write an individual essay or form a group of a maximum of two
students who will write one essay. In the case of a group (i.e. two students) essay, the
students will equally share the overall mark of the essay. This means that if, for
example the essay is marked as ‘c’ in the ECTS scheme, then both students who have
written the essay will be awarded a ‘c’ mark for that essay. Students who plan to write
a group essay should notify me by Class 5, i.e. by Friday 11 November 2016 the
latest.
The topic of the essay is the following:
3
Read the following article (a pdf will be provided by the course tutor):
Klein, N. 2016. Let Them Drown. The Violence of Othering in a Warming World.
London Review of Books Vol. 38 No. 11 · 2 June 2016, pp: 11-14
If you prefer, instead of reading the text you can watch the video where Klein presents
her article at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CChLEtIu4iY
Naomi Klein argues that a key source of vulnerability to climate change is “othering”,
a practice which she calls “violent”.
1. What does Klein mean by that, and how does “othering” happen? Explain in your
own words (i.e. without copy-pasting Klein’s text). Your answer should not be
longer than 1,000 words. (40% of the final mark)
2. Think of another example of “othering” which produces victims of environmental
change. Explain what it involves, and how it happens. Use knowledge from the
class to answer the question, e.g. the issue of winners and losers from
environmental change, how discourse produces change that favours some at the
expense of others, what mechanisms of power operate and how, etc. Your answer
should not be longer than 1,000 words. (40% of the final mark).
Bibliography for the essay
Some more resources (the first and the last one will be provided in pdf by the course
tutor) to help you better understand the essay’s key term of “othering”:
Corfield, J. 2007. Orientalism. In: Robbins, P. (ed.) Encyclopedia of environment and
society. SAGE Publications, pp: 1309-1310
Gabriel, Y. 2012. The Other and Othering. A short introduction. Available at:
http://www.yiannisgabriel.com/2012/09/the-other-and-othering-short.html
Sharpe, J.P. 2009. Chapter 1: Imagining the world. Geographies of Postcolonialism.
Spaces of Power and Representation. SAGE, pp.11-28
(This is not obligatory reading, they are simply additional resources in case you need
support for your essay).
2. 20% of the final mark will be awarded on the basis of student participation in the
classes. This will mainly involve student commitment and performance in
answering the class assignments for classes 2, 3, 4, and 5 (see ‘Course outline’
below), but other factors such as eagerness to participate and constructive
comments during the class will also be taken into account. Performance in each
assignment amounts to 5% of the overall mark.
Course outline
This section provides an outline of classes together with the readings students should
do and class assignments they should complete for each class.
4
Class 1: Introduction
Introduction to course logistics as well as key concepts such as power, politics,
environmental change, conflict and governance that are basic for the course.
Reading: Robbins, P. 2004. Introduction. In: Political Ecology. Malden: Blackwell
Publishing. pp. xv-xvi
Student Assignment: No assignment for this class
Further bibliography
Robbins, P. 2012. Political Ecology. John Wiley & Sons
Paulson, S., Gezon, L., Watts, M. 2005. Politics, ecologies, genealogies. In: Paulson,
S., Geezon, L. (eds.) Political Ecology across Spaces, Scales, and Social
Groups. New Jersey: Rutgers
Class 2: Green materialism
This class introduces students to the conceptual framework of historical materialism
(applied for the study of environmental issues), which is key for understanding
environmental change and conflict under the lenses of political ecology.
Reading: Robbins, P. 2004. Green Materialism. In: Political Ecology. Malden:
Blackwell Publishing. pp. 44-52 and pp. 36-38
Student assignment 1: Robbins explains that “[f]or materialists, environmental
degradation is... inevitable in capitalism” (p. 46). Explain in your own words why is
this the case, and how does such degradation occur.
Further bibliography
Greenberg, J.B., Parks, T.K. 1994. Political ecology. Journal of Political Ecology
Vol.1, pp. 1-12
Moore, J. W. 2000. Sugar and the expansion of the early modern world-economy:
commodity frontiers, ecological transformation, and industrialization. Review
(Fernand Braudel Center), 409-433
Class 3: The power of structures
This class focuses on the presentation of structuralism, a major approach for
understanding power and politics and how these influence environmental change.
Reading: Brownlow, A. 2006. An archaeology of fear and environmental change in
Philadelphia. Geoforum 37, pp. 227-245
Student Assignment 2: Brownlow (2006) argues that “…the uncontrolled growth of
weeds and their emerging dominance in the landscape do appear to symbolize
disorder, decay, and the absence of control that accompany years of political and
5
fiscal neglect. Socially speaking, the significance of weeds is not what they do but,
rather, what they represent; the same can be said for the abandoned autos, heaps of
garbage, discarded needles, condoms, and drug paraphernalia, and broken glass that
are pervasive throughout the park” (p. 242). Why, according to Brownlow, have
disorder and decay fallen upon Cobbs Creek?
Further bibliography
Schroeder, R.A., St. Martin, K., Albert, K.E. 2006. Political ecology in North
America: discovering the Third World within? Geoforum 37, pp. 163-168
McCarthy, J. 2002. First World political ecology: lessons from the Wise Use
movement. Environment and planning A, 34(7). pp. 1281-1302
Class 4: The power from within
The class looks at power as something exercised from within individuals instead of
something exercised upon them, and how this contributes to environmental change.
Reading: Robbins, P. 2007. Do Lawn People Choose Lawns? In: Robbins, P. Lawn
People: How Grasses, Weeds, and Chemicals Make Us Who We Are. Philadelphia:
Temple University Press, pp. 96-116
Student Assignment 3: According to Robbins, people who are more aware of the
environmental impacts of chemicals and are more concerned about their communities
are those who use more intensively chemicals on their lawns. How do Robbins’
middle-class US lawn managers (“lawn people”) end up using chemicals which they
know that are harmful not only to the environment but also to their own health? Why
do they do that to themselves and the environment?
Further bibliography
Peet, R., Robbins, P., Watts, M. 2011. Global nature. In: Peet, R., Robbins, P., Watts,
M. (Eds.) Global political ecology. London & New York: Routledge, pp. 1-47
[especially pp. 31-36]
Agrawal, A. 2005. Environmentality: technologies of government and the making of
subjects. Durham, NC: Duke University Press
Class 5: The power of discourse, and the incomplete character of domination
This class focuses on the presentation of post-structuralism, its approach on
understanding power and politics and its application in political ecology.
Reading: St. Martin, K. 2006. The impact of “community” on fisheries management
in the US Northeast. Geoforum 37, pp. 227-245
Student Assignment 4: St. Martin (2006) explains that “As with past enclosures of
common property, the discursive enclosure clears communities and their associated
6
social/cultural relations from the domain of economy and produces a resource open to
discursive and literal appropriation” (p. 173). How does that happen?
Further bibliography
Escobar, A. 1996. Construction nature: Elements for a post-structuralist political
ecology. Futures 28 (4), pp. 325-343
Sharpe, J. 2009. Geographies of postcolonialism: spaces of power and representation.
Sage Publications
Class 6: Transforming nature (movie screening class)
For the first part of this class we will watch the 1984 movie ‘Where Green Ants go to
Dream’ (by German director Werner Herzog). After the screening, we will discuss
how the movie talks about the influence of power relations in environmental
transformation and conflict, trying to bring into the discussion knowledge we have
acquired in the course.
Reading: None.
Student Assignment: None.