AMHERST COLLEGE
Gender and the
Environment
Women’s and Gender Studies
Spring 2009
Professor Picq
T/Th 11:30-12:50; Clark 100
SYLLABUS
Gender and the Environment
Manuela Picq
542-5351; mpicq@amherst.edu; 105 Earth Sciences
Office Hours: Tuesday/Wednesday 2-5pm / by appointment.
WAGS 07
T/Th 11:30-12:50am
Clark 100
Description
This interdisciplinary course lies at the intersection of gender and environmental studies.
Exploring different regions of the world from Latin America to South East Asia, we will
study the impact of environmental degradation on women's security, dealing with such
themes as access to water, resource governance, and how access to resources such as
firewood, food, and property affect education and health. The course also explores
political ecology and diverging discourses on conservation and resource management by
analyzing the engendering of international norms and practices in the U.N. system and
beyond. Lastly, the course looks at the securitization of gender in global politics, pointing
to the central role of women's agency in promoting environmental security and peacemaking.
Grading system
Class participation 15% - Students are expected to prepare and attend all class sessions
and participate actively in class discussions. Unexcused absences can result in reduced
credit.
Class presentation 20% - Once during the semester, each student will do a short oral
presentation (10min) about one of the readings (10%) and turn in a written analytical
essay (10%) about the reading to the professor via email before class starts.
Group Presentations: 20% - Students will do two group presentations (3 p. max) during
the semester. The first presentation due on Feb 19 will analyze a specific topic from the
film “Iracema.” The second presentation due on Apr 23 will analyze case-studies of
women’s groups organizing around environmental matters worldwide.
Essay 20% - Each student will write two individual essays during the semester. This
exercise focuses on research and content as much as form and style. A paper analyzing a
specific case-study (5p) about gender in our immediate environment is due on Feb 13 by
email. Another analytical essay (8p) is due on Apr 7 bridging the two books by Shiva
“Staying Alive” and Maathai “The Green Belt Movement.” Essay work will be discussed
in class.
Conference project 25% - At the end of the semester, each student will conduct a formal,
in-class presentation of individual research projects combined with a 7-10 page paper
(proposals to present final projects in a different format/support are welcome). This
exercise will simulate an academic conference or roundtable, in which scholars write a
paper and discuss ideas during a panel. We will discuss each student project individually
2|Page
during the semester. Project topics are due in class on Mar 12 and a detailed outline is
due by email by Apr 16.
Course Readings (available as E Reserve)
Every student must come to class with readings in print
Book list (available at Amherst Books - 8 Main Street, Amherst - 413.256.1547)
Vandana Shiva (1989) Staying Alive: Women, Ecology, and Development in India.
Charles Mann (2005) 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus.
Wangari Maathai (2003) The Green Belt Movement: Sharing the Approach and the
Experience.
Reading and Discussion Schedule
Syllabus subject to change
Part 1. Conceptual Approach: Gender and the Environment
Week 1. Introduction
Jan 27 - Course overview and introductions
Jan 29 – Mapping gender inequality: individual research on gender data. Gender
Progress Chart (2008) [E]; Nussbaum (2005) “Women’s Bodies: Violence,
Security, Capabilities” [E].
Week 2. Engendering the Environment
Feb 3 – Bridging gender discourses with environmental concerns: Sen
Development as Freedom (intro/7/8/9) [E]
Feb 5 – Eco-feminism: Shiva (1989) Staying Alive [B]
Week 3. Gender within Our Environment
Feb 10 – Spacing Gender: Guest speaker Elizabeth Cahn (Mount Holyoke)
Feb 12 – no class
Part 2. Women and Resources
Week 4. Colonialism, Nature, and Women
Feb 17 – Conquest: Mann (2005) 1491 [B]; Berger (2004) “Indian Policy and the
Imagined Woman,” Law and Public Policy 103 (p103-120) [E]; LaDuke speech
“Voices from White Earth” (mp3) [E]; Suarez-Arauz (2002) “Crazy Indians” in
Edible Amazonia [E].
3|Page
Feb 19 – Rape: Film/documentary by Bodanzky (1975) “Iracema” [E].
Group presentations (topics: developmental state, logging and deforestation,
military dictatorship, prostitution, ethnicity).
Tuesday: 7h30pm Conference by Charles Mann (TBD)
Week 5. Women, Land, and Property Rights
Feb 24 – Agarwal (1994) A Field of One’s Own (chapters 1/2/6/7) [E]; Agarwal
and Panda (2005) “Marital Violence, Human Development and Women’s
Property Status in India,” World Development Vol. 33, N.5 (p.823-850) [E];
Agarwal “On the Passing of Age” (poem) [E].
Feb 26 –Deere and Leon (2003) “The Gender Asset Gap: Land in Latin
America,” World Development Vol. 31, N.6 (p.925-947) [E]; Duvivier (2008)
“My Body is my piece of land: Female Sexuality, Family, and Capital in
Caribbean Texts” Callaloo 31.4 (p.1104-1121) [E]; Lastaria (2007) “Who
Benefits from Land Titling? Lessons from Bolivia and Laos” The Gatekeepers
Series 132 [E].
Discussion Final Conference Project
Week 6. Engendering Resources
Mar 3 – Forestry: FAO “Restoring the Balance: Women and forest resources”
(part 1-2-3) [E]; Agarwal (1987)“Under the cooking Pot: The Political Economy
of the Domestic Fuel Crisis in Rural South Asia,” IDS Bulletin 18: 11-22 [E].
Mar 5 – Health: Sebastian, Armstrong, Stephens (2002) “Outcomes of
Pregnancy among Women Living in the proximity of Oil Fields in the Amazon
basin of Ecuador” [E].
Week 7. Women and Water
Mar 10 – Scarcity: Zwarteveen and Bennett (2005) “The Connection Between
Gender and Water Management” in Opposing Currents: The Politics of Water
and Gender in Latin America (p.13-29) [E]; WASH (2006) “For Her It’s the Big
Issue: Putting Women at the Center of Water Supply, Sanitation, and Hygiene”
[E].
Mar 12 –Environmental justice and political inequality: Ivens (2008) “Does
Increased Water Access Empower Women?” Development 51 (p.63-67) [E];
Newell (2005) “Race, Class and the Global Politics of Environmental Inequality”
Global Environmental Politics 5:3 (p.70-94) [E].
Final project topics due in class and via email
Spring Recess
4|Page
Part 3. Environmental Security and the Politics of Gender
Week 8. Environmental Security for Women
Mar 24 – Redefining security: McNeil (2000) “Making Sense of Environmental
Security” North-South Center Agenda Paper [E]; Kennedy (1998)
“Environmental Quality and Regional Conflict” Woodrow Wilson Center Report
[E]; UN Resolutions 1325 and1820 [E].
Mar 26 – Women facing war: Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and
Children Report (2006) “Finding Trees in the Desert: Firewood collection and
alternatives in Darfur.” [E]; Binder, Lukas, Schweiger “Empty Words or Real
Achievement? The Impact of Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women in
Armed Conflicts” Radical History Review Issue 101 (p.22-41) [E].
Week 9. Gender and Conservation
Mar 31 – FAO (2002) “The Role of Women in the Conservation of the Genetic
Resources of Maize” [E]; Shanley (2006) “Science for the Poor: How One
Woman Challenged Researchers, Ranchers, and Loggers in Amazonia” Ecology
and Society 11(2):28 [E]; Film “Daughters of the Canopy” (Brasil) [E]
Apr 2 – FAO “Restoring the Balance: Women and Forest Resources” (part 4-5)
[E]; Film “The Dancing Forest” [E].
Week 10. Greening Global Civil Society
Apr 7- One tree at a time: Maathai (2003) The Green Belt Movement [B]
Apr 9 – Environmental human rights: Conca (2007) “Environmental Governance
After Johannesburg: From Stalled Legalization to Environmental Human Rights?”
Journal of International Law and International Relations, Vol. 1 (1-2) (p.121138) [E]
Week 11. Mainstreaming International Politics
Apr 14- International organizations: Cohn (2004) “Mainstreaming Gender in UN
Security Policy: A Path to Political Transformation?” Boston Consortium on
Gender, Security and Human Rights, Working Paper 204 [E]; UNEP (2006)
“Gender Mainstreaming Among Environment Ministries – Government Survey
2006” [E]; UNEP (2007) Progress Report on the Implementation of Governing
Council 23/11 on gender Equality in the Field of the Environment” [E].
Apr 16 – Transnational norms: Case-study “2008: the Year of Gender and Water
in Brazil” [E]; UNDP Report “Mainstreaming Gender in Water Management”
[E]; Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation “Gender and Water:
mainstreaming gender equality in water, hygiene and sanitation interventions”
[E].
Final project outline due by email
5|Page
Week 12. Women Activism (From the Bottom-up)
Apr 21 – Gender collective action: Agarwal (2000) “Conceptualizing
Environmental Collective Action: Why Gender Matters,” Cambridge Journal of
Economics 24 (p.283-310) [E]; Okoko (1999) “Women and Environmental
Change in the Niger Delta, Nigeria: Evidence from Ibeno” Gender, Place, and
Culture, Vol 6, N.4 [E]; Turner and Brownhill (2004) “Why Women Are at
War with Chevron: Nigerian Subsistence Struggles Against the International Oil
Industry” [E].
Apr 23 - Group presentations: women movements acting on environmental
politics worldwide.
Week 13. At the Margins of Global Governance
Apr 28- Bretherton (2003) “Movements, Networks, Hierarchies: a Gender
Perspective on Global Environmental Governance” Global Environmental
Politics 3 2 (p.103-119) [E].
Apr 30 – Class overview
Week 14. Final Conference
May 5 – conference/ peer reviewing
May 7 - conference/ peer reviewing
6|Page