SOC 763 Topics in Environmental Sociology Tuesdays 9-11:30 Fall 2013 McGuinn 415 Juliet Schor Boston College 531 McGuinn Hall, x2-4056 juliet.schor@bc.edu Office hours: Monday 12-1:30 and by appointment Course Description. This course is designed as both a stand-alone class and a follow-on to Brian Gareau’s graduate Environmental Sociology course (SC 562). We will look at a series of topics within environmental sociology, broadly defined. These include the sociology of climate change, food and agriculture, environmental activism, sustainable consumption and its politics (including the politics of fair trade), environmental justice, the debate about limits to growth, and the emerging field of “new economics.” We will read a number of ethnographies that deal with various aspects of the environment. This is not a standard Environmental Sociology survey, which is typically organized by theoretical frameworks. Although there will be a fair amount of theory in the class, as a “topics” course it is structured around environmental problems (eg., climate change, food and agriculture). We will also include some debates within the larger environmental discourse, rather than just those that have dominated Environmental Sociology (eg., the Limits to Growth debate). Again, as a Topics Course, and because the field is growing so rapidly, it has a strong bias toward new literature, rather than classics in the field. This field, more than most, has strong inter-disciplinary linkages, but also intradisciplinary ones. The sociology sub-fields of social movements, politics, agriculture, development, consumption, political economy, urban, health and medicine, science and technology and others all have important literatures that relate to environmental issues (eg., impact of toxins on health, environmental movements, alternative agriculture, urban sustainability, “green” consumption). We will also read some geographers, economists, political scientists and anthropologists, although the bulk of the readings will be from sociology. Reading List. The required readings are set, but the lists of recommended readings are incomplete. I will continue to work on those throughout the remainder of the summer. Requirements. Course requirements include coming to class each week prepared to discuss the readings, a weekly 1 page written response to the readings to be posted Monday evenings by 8 pm, a 4-5 page critical essay on one of the major readings in the class, and a 20 page seminar paper, due at the end of reading period. Books. The following books have been ordered through the Boston College Bookstore. Alison Alkon and Julian Ageyman, eds., Cultivating Food Justice: Race, Class, and Sustainability (MIT Press, 2011) Javier Auyero and Débora Alejandra Swistun, Flammable: Environmental Suffering in an Argentine Shantytown, (Oxford University Press 2011) Michael Goldman, Imperial Nature: The World Bank and Struggles for Social Justice in the Age of Globalization (Yale, 2005) Julie Guthman, Agrarian Dreams: The Paradox of Organic Farming in California (California, 2004) Daniel Jaffee, Brewing Justice: Fair Trade Coffee, Sustainability and Survival (University of California 2007) Kari Marie Norgaard, Living in Denial: Climate Change, Emotion and Everyday Life (MIT Press 2011) J. Timmons Roberts and Bradley C. Parks, A Climate of Injustice: Global Inequality, North-South Politics, and Climate Policy (MIT Press, 2007) Andrew Ross, Bird on Fire: Lessons from the World’s Least Sustainable City (Oxford 2013) Reading List I. Introduction September 3 Introductions to Environmental Sociology Goldman, Michael and Rachel A. Schurman. 2000. “Closing the ‘Great Divide’: New Social Theory on Society and Nature.” Annual Review of Sociology 26:563584. Ramachandran Guha, “Toward a Cross-Cultural Environmental Ethic,” and “Radical American Environmentalism and Wilderness Preservation: A Third World Critique,” chs 4 and 5 in Ramachandran Guha and Juan Martinez-Alier, Varieties of Environmentalism: Essays North and South (Earthscan, 1997), pp. 77-108. 2 Donella Meadows, Jurgen Randers and Dennis Meadows, Limits to Growth: the 30 Year Update (Chelsea Green, 2004), chs 2-3, pp. 17-127. Bill McKibben, “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math,” Rolling Stone, July 19, 2012, accessible at: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/globalwarmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719 Recommended: Riley E. Dunlap, “The maturation and diversification of environmental sociology: from constructivism and realism to agnosticism and pragmatism” in The International Handbook of Environmental Sociology, Second Edition, Michael Redclift and Graham Woodgate, editors, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010. Freudenberg, William R., Scott Frickel and Robert Gramling. 1995. “Beyond the Nature/Society Divide: Learning to Think about a Mountain,” Sociological Forum 10: 361-392. September 10 An Ethnographic Look at the Problem of Sustainability Andrew Ross, Bird on Fire: Lessons from the World’s Least Sustainable City (Oxford 2013). II. Food and Agriculture September 17 Critical Perspectives on the Alternative Food Movement I Julie Guthman, Agrarian Dreams: The Paradox of Organic Farming in California (California, 2004), chs 1-4, 6-8. September 24 Critical Perspectives on the Alternative Food Movement II Kloppenburg, J., J. Hendrickson, et al. (1996). "Coming in to the Foodshed." Agriculture and Human Values 13(3): 33-42. David Goodman, Melanie DuPuis and Michael Goodman, Alternative Food Networks: Knowledge, Practice and Politics (Routledge 2011), chs. 7. Hinrichs, C. C. (2003). "The Practice and Politics of Food System Localization." Journal of Rural Studies 19: 33-45. 3 Julie Guthman, “Neoliberalism and the making of food politics in California,” Geoforum 39 (2008) 1171–1183. DuPuis, E. M. and D. Goodman (2005). "Should We Go “Home” to Eat? Toward a Reflexive Politics of Localism." Journal of Rural Studies 21: 359-371. October 1 Critical Perspectives on the Alternative Food Movement III Alison Alkon and Julian Ageyman, eds., Cultivating Food Justice: Race, Class, and Sustainability (MIT Press, 2011), chs. 5, 9, 12, 13. Alison Leitch, “Slow Food and the Politics of Pork Fat: Italian Food and European Identity,” Ethnos Vol 68(4): 437-462. DeLind, L. B. (2006). “Of Bodies, Place, and Culture: Re-situating Local Food,” Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 19(2): 121-146. Recommended: Thomas Lyson, Toward a Civic Agriculture: Reconnecting Farm, Food, and Community C. Clare Hinrichs and Thomas A. Lyson, eds, Remaking the North American Food System: Strategies for Sustainability (Nebraska Press 2007). Julie Guthman, “Fast food/organic food: reflexive tastes and the marking of ‘yuppie chow’ Social and Culural Geography, 4(1):45-58. Thompson, Craig J, and Gokcen Coskuner-Balli. 2007. “Enchanting Ethical Consumerism: The Case of Community Supported Agriculture.” Journal of Consumer Culture, 7:275-303. Josee Johnston and Shyon Baumann, “Democracy versus Distinction: A Study of Omnivorousness in Gourmet Food Writing,” American Journal of Sociology, Volume 113 Number 1 (July 2007): 165–204. Alkon, A. H. (2008). "From value to values: sustainable consumption at farmers markets." Agriculture and Human Values 25: 487-498. DeLind, L. B. (1999). "Close encounters with a CSA: The reflections of a bruised and somewhat wiser anthropologist." Agriculture and Human Values. 16: 3-9. DeLind, L. B. (2002). "Place, Work and Civic Agriculture: Common Fields for Cultivation." Agriculture and Human Values 19: 217-224. Guthman, J. (2002). "Commodified Meanings, Meaningful Commodities: Rethinking Production-Consumption Links through the Organic System of Provision." Sociologia Ruralis 42(4): 295-311. 4 Hinrichs, C. and K. S. Kremer (2002). "Social Inclusion in a Midwest Local Food System Project." Journal of Poverty 6: 65-90. Holloway, L., M. Kneafsey, et al. (2007). "Possible Food Economies: a Methodological Framework for Exploring Food Production–Consumption Relationships." Sociologia Ruralis 47(1): 1-19. Jaffe, J. and M. Gertler (2006). "Victual vicissitudes: Consumer deskilling and the (gendered) transformation of food systems." Agriculture and Human Values 23: 143-162. Kloppenburg, J. and N. Hassanein (2006). "From Old School to Reform School?" Agriculture and Human Values 23: 417-21. Kloppenburg, J., J. Hendrickson, et al. (1996). "Coming in to the Foodshed." Agriculture and Human Values 13(3): 33-42. Lamine, C. (2005). "Settling Shared Uncertainties: Local Partnerships Between Producers and Consumers." Sociologia Ruralis 45. Lockie, S. (2009). "Responsibility and agency within alternative food networks: assembling the “citizen consumer” Agriculture and Human Values 26(3): 193201. Lockie, S. and S. Kitto (2000). "Beyond the farm gate: production-consumption networks and agri-food research." Sociologia Ruralis 40(1): 3-19. Mariola, M. J. (2008). "The local industrial complex? Questioning the link between local foods and energy use." Agriculture and Human Values 25: 193196. Winter, M. (2003). "Embeddedness, the New Food Economy and Defensive Localism." Journal of Rural Studies 19(1): 23-32. III. Climate Change October 8 Explaining Climate Inaction: Political Economy and Social Psychology Aaron M. McCright and Riley E. Dunlap, “Defeating Kyoto: The Conservative Movement's Impact on U.S. Climate Change Policy,” Social Problems, Vol. 50, No. 3 (Aug., 2003), pp. 348-373. Maxwell T. Boykoff and Jules M. Boykoff, “Balance as bias: global warming and the US prestige press,” Global Environmental Change 14 (2004) 125–136. 5 Kari Marie Norgaard, Living in Denial: Climate Change, Emotion and Everyday Life (MIT Press 2011), Introduction and chs 2, 3, 6, pp. 1-13, 33-97, 177-207. Marius K. Luedicke, Craig J. Thompson and Markus Giesler, “Defying the Jeremiad against Consumerism: How American Exceptionalism Provides a Moral Justification for Resource-Intensive Consumption Practices,” Journal of Consumer Research, 2010. Naomi Klein, “Capitalism v. the Climate,” The Nation, November 9, 2011, available online at: http://www.thenation.com/article/164497/capitalism-vsclimate/ October 15 International Climate Issues J. Timmons Roberts and Bradley C. Parks, A Climate of Injustice: Global Inequality, North-South Politics, and Climate Policy (MIT Press, 2007). Recommended: Pralle, Sarah. 2006. ‘‘‘I’m Changing the Climate, Ask Me How!’: The Politics of the Anti-SUV Campaign.” Political Science Quarterly 121(3):397-423. Hayden, Anders, 2008, “From Growth to Sufficiency? The Emerging Challenge to Ecological Modernization in the UK Climate-Change Debate.” unpublished paper, Boston College, Department of Sociology. Antonio, Robert J. and Robert J. Brulle. 2011. “The Unbearable Lightness of Politics: Climate Change Denial & Political Polarization.” Sociological Quarterly (52): 195–202. Brulle, Robert J., Jason Carmichael, and J. Craig Jenkins. 2012. “Shifting Public Opinion on Climate Change; An Empirical Assessment of Factors influencing Concern over Climate Change in the U.S.” Climatic Change 114 (2): 169-188. Kincaid, Graciela, and J. Timmons Roberts. 2013 “No Talk, but Some Walk: The Obama Administration’s First Term Rhetoric on Climate Change and its International Climate Budget Commitments.” Global Environmental Politics 13(4) Forthcoming, November. Carlsson-Kanyama, A. (1998). "Climate change and dietary choices -- how can emissions of greenhouse gases from food consumption be reduced?" Food Policy 23(3/4): 277-293. Anil Agarwal and Sunita Narain, “Global Warming in an Unequal World: A Case of Eco-Colonialism,” Report of the Center for Science in the Public Interest (New Delhi, 1991) 6 Paul Baer and Thomas Athanasiou, “The Right to Development in a Climate Constrained World,” Executive Summary, Revised Second Edition, 2008, available at: http://www.in.boell.org/web/113-397.html IV. Environmental Justice and Social Movements October 22 Toxics and Environmental Justice Javier Auyero and Débora Alejandra Swistun, Flammable: Environmental Suffering in an Argentine Shantytown, (Oxford University Press 2011). James Boyce, “Is Inequality Bad for the Environment?” in Inequality, Cooperation, and Environmental Sustainability, Jean-Marie Baland, Pranab Bardhan and Samuel Bowles, eds. (Princeton 2006) Recommended: Robert J. Bullard, Dumping in Dixie David N. Pellow, Garbage Wars David N. Pellow and Lisa Park, The Slums of Aspen Taylor, Dorceta. 2000. “The Rise of the Environmental Justice Paradigm: Injustice Framing and the Social Construction of Environmental Discourses.” American Behavioral Scientist 43(4):508-580. Bullard, R. D. (2005). The Quest for Environmental Justice: Human Rights and the Politics of Pollution. San Francisco, CA: Sierra Club Books. Agyeman, J. (2005). Sustainable Communities and the Challenge of Environmental Justice. New York: New York University Press. Cable, S., Mix, T., & Hastings, D. (2005). Mission Impossible? Environmental Justice Activists’ Collaborations with Professional Environmentalists and with Academics. Power, Justice, and the Environment. Cambridge, MA.: The MIT Press. Lynch, B. D. (1993). The garden and the sea: US Latino environmental discourses and mainstream environmentalism. Social Problems, 40(1), 108–124. Smith, K. (2007). African American Environmental Thought Foundations. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas. October 29 Environmental Movements Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, 2004, “The Death of Environmentalism: Global Warming Politics in a Post-Environmental World,” 7 Breakthrough Institute, http://thebreakthrough.org/archive/the_death_of_environmentalism. Michael Gelobter et al, “The Soul of Environmentalism,” available at: www.rprogress.org/soul/soul.pdf Ramachandra Guha and Juan-Martinez Alier, “ The Environmentalism of the Poor,” ch1 in Varieties of Environmentalism: Essays North and South (Earthscan, 1997), pp. 3-21. Recommended: Robert J. Brulle, Agency, Democracy, and Nature: The U.S. Environmental Movement from a Critical Theory Perspective (MIT Press 2000), ch TBA. Rachel Schurman and William A. Munro, Fighting for the Future of Food: Activists versus Agribusiness in the Struggle Over Biotechnology (Minnesota, 2010).Roger Gottlieb and Anupama Joshi, Food Justice (MIT Press). Ramachandra Guha, The Unquiet Woods: Ecological Change and Peasant Resistance in the Himalaya (Delhi,1989), ch.7. Paul Hawken, Blessed Unrest, (Penguin 2007). Theda Skocpol, “Naming the Problem: What It Will Take to Counter Extremism and Engage Americans in the Fight against Global Warming,” unpublished paper, Harvard University, January 2013. V. Global Environmental Issues Nov 5 Limits to Growth, Population, Governing the Commons Donella Meadows, Jurgen Randers and Dennis Meadows, Limits to Growth: the 30 Year Update (Chelsea Green, 2004), chs 2-3, pp. 17-127. (if you didn’t read it earlier in the semester, please read now) John Urry, “Consuming the Planet to Excess,” Theory, Culture and Society 27(2-3): 191-212. Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons: The Evolutions of Institutions for Collective Action (Cambridge, 1990), chs 1-3. Kyle W. Knight, Eugene A. Rosa, and Juliet B. Schor, “Could Working Less Reduce Pressures on the Environment?: A Cross-National Panel Analysis of OECD Countries, 1970-2007, Global Environmental Change, 23: 691-700, 2013. 8 Recommended: Gareth Hardin, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” Science 162: 1243–1248, 13 December 1968. Holdren, J.P., and P.R. Ehrlich, 1974 “Human population and the global environment,” American Scientist 62:282-292 Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich, “The Population Bomb Revisited,” The Electronic Journal of Sustainable Development (2009), Vol 1(3), pp. 63-71. Betsy Hartmann “Rethinking the Role of Population in Human Security,” in Richard A. Matthew et al, eds, Global Environmental Change and Human Security, (MIT Press 2010), pp 193-204. Rockström, Johan, et al 2009. A safe operating space for humanity. Nature 461 (September 24): 472–75. Mike Davis, Planet of Slums New Economics Foundation, Growth Isn’t Possible. Myers and Kent, The New Consumers (Island Press 2004) Wolfgang Sachs and Tilman Santarius, Fair Future: Resource Conflicts, Security and Global Justice (London: Zed Books 2007) Shoibal Chakravartya, Ananth Chikkaturb, Heleen de Coninckc, Stephen Pacalaa, Robert Socolow, and Massimo Tavon, “Sharing global CO2 emission reductions among one billion high emitters,” PNAS, 2009. November 12 Global Environmental Governance Michael Goldman, Imperial Nature: The World Bank and Struggles for Social Justice in the Age of Globalization (Yale, 2005), chs. 4-7. VI. Movements for Sustainability November 26 Sustainable Consumption and its Politics Connolly J. and Prothero A. (2008), “Green Consumption: Life-politics, Risk and Contradictions,” Journal of Consumer Culture, 8(1), pp 117-145. Shove, Elizabeth, 2005, “Changing human behavior and lifestyle: a challenge for sustainable consumption?” in Inge Ropke and Lucia Reisch (eds), The Ecological Economics of Consumption. Elgar, Cheltenham, pp. 111-132. 9 Teresa Gowan and Rachel Slocum, 2014, “Artisanal Production, Communal Provisioning and Anti-Capitalist Politics in the Aude, France,” Practicing Plenitude, Juliet B. Schor and Craig J. Thompson (Yale, forthcoming) Dubois, Emilie A., Juliet B. Schor and Lindsey B. Carfagna, 2014, “New Cultures of Connection in a Boston Time Bank,” in Juliet B. Schor and Craig J. Thompson, Practicing Plenitude (Yale, forthcoming). Sassatelli, Roberta. 2006, “Virtue, Responsibility and Consumer Choice: Framing Critical Consumerism,’ in John Brewer and Frank Trentmann, eds., 2006 Consuming Cultures, Global Perspectives (New York: Berg), ch 9, pp. 219-250. Andrew Szasz, Shopping Our Way to Safety, (Minnesota), Introduction, chs 6-7. “Does Changing a Light Bulb Lead to Changing the World? Civic Engagement and the Ecologically Conscious Consumer,” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 644 (1):160–190, 2012 (with Margaret Willis). Recommended: Gill Seyfang, The New Economics of Sustainable Consumption, chs 1-3. Juliet B. Schor, 2005, "Sustainable Consumption and Worktime Reduction," Review of Industrial Ecology, Special Issue on Sustainable Consumption, 9(1):37-50. Lindsey B. Carfagna, Emilie A. Dubois, Connor Fitzmaurice, Thomas Laidley, Monique Ouimette, Juliet B. Schor and Margaret Willis, “An emerging ecohabitus: the reconfiguration of high cultural capital practices among ethical consumers,” Journal of Consumer Culture, forthcoming 2014. Matthew Hilton, 2007. “Consumers and the state since the Second World War,” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 611: 66-81. Kate Soper and Frank Trentmann, eds., 2008, Citizenship and Consumption (Palgrave MacMillan). Forno, Francesca, and Luigi Ceccarini. 2006. “From the Street to the Shops: The Rise of New Forms of Political Actions in Italy.” South European Society & Politics, 11:197-222. Richard Wilk, 2004, “Questionable Assumptions about Sustainable Consumption,” in The Ecological Economics of Consumption, edited by Lucia A. Reisch and Inge Røpke, (Cheltenham, UK: Egward Elgar), pp. 17-31. Maniates, Michael. 2002. “Individualization: Plant a Tree, Buy a Bike, Save the World?” In Princen, T., M. Maniates, & K. Conca (Eds.) Confronting Consumption (pp. 43-66). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 10 Seyfang, G. (2004) ‘Consuming Values and Contested Cultures: A Critical Analysis of the UK Strategy for Sustainable Consumption and Production’, Review Of Social Economy Vol 62 (3), pp.323-338. Jesper Ole Jensen, 2008, “Measuring Consumption in Households: Interpretations and Strategies,” Ecological Economics 68:353-361. Kersty Hobson, “Competing Discourses of Consumption: Does the ‘Rationalisation of Lifestyles’ Make Sense?” Environmental Politics, 11(2): 95-120. L.H. Pedersen, Dynamics of Green Consumption: A Matter of Visibility,” J of Environmental Policy and Planning 2:193-210. Noah Goldstein, Robert Cialdini and Vladas Griskevicus, 2008, “A Room with a Viewpoint: Using Social Norms to Motivate Environmental Conservation in Hotels,” Journal of Consumer Research, vol 35:472-482. Vladas Griskevicius et al, 2010, “Going Green to be Seen,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98(3): 392-403. Nina Mazar and Chen-Bo Zhong, 2010, “Do Green Products Make Us Better People,” Psychological Science 21(4): 494-498. Guido Buenstorf and Christian Cordes, 2008, “Can Sustainable Consumption Be Learned: A Model of Cultural Evolution,” Ecological Economics 67:646-657. Iain R. Black and Helene Cherrier, 2010, “Anti-consumption as part of living a sustainable lifestyle: Daily practices, contextual motivations and subjective values, Journal of Consumer Behavior, 9: 437–453 David Evans and Wokje Abrahamse, 2009, “Beyond Rhetoric: The Possibilities for an of ‘Sustainable Lifestyles,” Environmental Politics 18(4):486-502. Seyfang, ch 6 Nelson, Michelle R., Mark A. Rademacher, and Hye-Jin Paek. 2007. Downshifting consumer = upshifting citizen? An examination of a local freecycle community. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 611 (1): 141–56. Andrea Prothero, Pierre McDonagh, and Susan Dobscha, 2010, “Is Green the New Black? Reflections on a Green Commodity Discourse,” Journal of Macromarketing, Inge Røpke, 2009, “Theories of Practice—new inspiration for ecological economic studies of consumption,” Ecological Economics, 68:2490-2497. Elizabeth Shove, 2003, “Converging Conventions of Comfort, Cleanliness and Convenience,” J of Consumer Policy, 26: 395-418. Gert Spaargaren, G, Vliet B.J.M. van, 2000, “Lifestyles, Consumption and Environment: The Ecological Modernization of Domestic Consumption,” Environmental Politics, 9:50-77. Martin Hand, Elizabeth Shove and Dale Southerton, 2005, “Explaining Showering: a Discussion of the Material, Conventional, and Temporal 11 Dimensions of Practice,” Sociological Research Online 10(2), available at: http://www.socresonline.org.uk/10/2/hand.html December 4 The Fair and Sustainable Trade Movement Daniel Jaffee Brewing Justice, chs 1, 4-5, 7-9. December 11 New Economics Gar Alperovitz, America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our Wealth, Our Liberty and Our Democracy (Wiley, 2006), chs 7-11 and Introduction to the Second Edition. Juliet B. Schor, Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth (Penguin Press 2010), chs 4-5. Foley, Duncan K. 2011. “Socialist alternatives to capitalism II: Vienna to Santa Fe” Lecture at the Havens Institute at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. April 6-7, Madison, WI. James K. Boyce, Sunita Narain and Elizabeth Stanton, Reclaiming Nature: Environmental Justice and Ecological Restoration (Anthem Environmental Studies, 2007), chs. 3, 5, 6. Recommended: Wolfgang Sachs, Reinhard Loske and Manfred Linz et al, Greening the North: A Post-Industrial Blueprint for Ecology and Equity, ch 5 Paradigms, pp., 84-172. (Zed Press 1998) Jackson, T. (2009) Prosperity Without Growth Prasannan Parthasarathi, “Toward Property as Share,” in Sustainable Planet: Solutions for the 21st Century, eds., Juliet B. Schor and Betsy Taylor, (Beacon Press 2000), pp. 141-153. Rogers, Joel, 2011, “Productive Democracy J. De Munck, C. Didry, I. Ferreras, and A. Jobert (eds.), Renewing Democratic Deliberation in Europe, The Challenge of Social and Civil Dialogue (Berlin: Peter Lang, 2012), ,” Pp. 71-92. Yochai Benkler, The Wealth of Networks (Yale 2004) 12