PROFESSOR
Anthropology & Sociology of Development
(ANSO)
Shaila Seshia Galvin
Academic year 2015 - 2016
shaila.seshia@graduateinstitute.ch
Environment and Society
Office hours :
Office :
Phone :
ANSO055 - Autumn - 6 ECTS
Friday 12:15 – 14:00 (S1)
Course Description
How can we understand the many ways in which people
shape their environments and are, in turn, shaped by
them? This course addresses this question by examining
the cultural, social, and political dimensions of humanenvironment relations over several thematic units. We
examine, in particular, foundational concerns and
approaches in environmental anthropology; the future of
human-environment relations in an age that some now call
the Anthropocene; the formation of environmental
knowledge; and the relation between environmental
governance and the governance of people.
Tuesday 14h - 16h
MdP P1-529
+41 22 908 4585
ASSISTANT
Anuradha Sen Mookerjee
anuradha.sen@graduateinstitute.ch
Office hours:
Office :
Phone :
Thursday 14h – 16h
MdP P1-517
+41 22 908 5845
Syllabus
Requirements and Assignments
Class Participation (35%): There are three components to your participation grade.
Attendance and Participation
Attendance in class is mandatory. I expect you to come to class on time, having read and reflected
on the readings, ready to participate by contributing your ideas and questions. If you cannot attend
class, please inform me by 5pm the day before. More than one unexcused absence will negatively
affect your participation grade.
Group Presentation
Once during the semester, you will be responsible for putting together a group presentation that
introduces the theme and reading for a particular week and raises questions for discussion. Further
details and guidelines for the presentations will be circulated early in the semester. Once
enrollments have stabilized after the second week of classes, I will circulate a sign-up sheet for these
presentations. Each group should plan to meet at least three times: first, to discuss plans for their
presentation with each other, next with me on Tuesday afternoon during my office hours, and at least
once more to finalize the presentation.
Chemin Eugène-Rigot 2 | CP 136 - CH-1211 Genève 21 | +41 22 908 57 00 | graduateinstitute.ch
MAISON DE LA PAIX
Final Presentation of Research Paper
The last two classes of the semester are dedicated to the presentation of your research papers.
Guidelines on presentations will be circulated later in the semester.
Reading Responses (30%): You will be responsible for submitting 5 reading responses, on
alternating weeks, over the course of the semester. Once enrolments have stabilized, I will circulate a
handout listing the dates on which you will be required to submit a response. Your responses should
be approximately 250-300 words. You should concisely capture the key points of the readings, relate
the readings to each other (or to others we have covered in the course), and discuss particular
strengths or weaknesses. Your response should conclude with two questions that you would like to
be considered for discussion in class.
Please post your responses to Moodle by 12 noon on Thursday, the day before class. All members of
the class are expected to read each other's responses prior to each class meeting.
Final Research Paper (30%)
The culminating requirement for this class will be a research paper of 20 pages that extends course
themes and/or readings on a topic of your choosing. I strongly encourage you in the first weeks of the
semester to use my office hours to discuss possible ideas for your paper.
You are welcome to conduct original fieldwork or interviews, although this is not required. If original
research is something you are considering, please let me know as soon as possible so that we can
discuss research design, methods, and ethics.
The research paper will be due on December 18, the last day of class. Please email your paper to
me and Anuradha, and bring one hard copy to class.
Outline and Annotated Bibliography (5%): A 3-4 page outline and annotated bibliography for your
final paper will be due on October 30.
Deadlines for Submission of Written Work
Assignment
Reading Responses
Outline and Annotated Bibliography
Final Paper
Due Date
Thursdays at 12 noon, post to Moodle
October 30
December 18
Contact
Email is the best way to contact me, and between 9am and 4pm during the working week I will do my
best to respond to your email as soon as possible. At other times of day, and on the weekends, it
may take me longer to respond. I will use Moodle to circulate class announcements, assignments,
resources, and other course-related information. I encourage you to attend my office hours, and I can
also meet with you by appointment.
Academic Honesty
The free exchange of ideas, at the Graduate Institute and as members of a larger intellectual
community, hinges on academic honesty and integrity. Plagiarism involves deliberately or
inadvertently representing the work of others as one’s own. Please refer to the Graduate Institute's
policy on academic honesty and plagiarism, available in the "Academic Policies and Regulations"
section of the Student Portal.
While research and knowledge advance in part because we use and build on the ideas of others, it is
vital that we always acknowledge our sources. I encourage each of you to develop a consistent
system for note taking, referencing, and citing your sources. Please use the Chicago author-date
- Page 2 Syllabus subject to revision
system for both in-text citations and bibliographies. See:
http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html
I encourage you to visit the Graduate Institute's Library where you will find information on training
presentations for using bibliographic and referencing software such as EndNote and Zotero.
Please do not hesitate to see me if you ever have any questions about academic honesty and how it
applies to your work.
Late Work
Late assignments will lose one half a point for each day of lateness. Extensions will be granted only
in exceptional circumstances.
Technology in the Classroom
Use of technology within the classroom must be limited to only that which is necessary for note-taking
or reading course material. Please disable Wi-Fi settings on laptops or tablets to minimize sources of
distraction to you and others during class. I do not allow the use of cell phones or other mobile
devices inside the classroom.
Framings and Foundations
How have relations between environment and society been understood in different historical periods,
and across different regions of the world? What is meant by the 'Commons', and what assumptions
underlie it? How did early anthropologists study the relation between people and the environment?
September 18 – Perspectives on Nature and Culture
Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland. 2013 [1807]. "Essay on the Geography of Plants".
(excerpt) In The Future of Nature, eds. Libby Robin, Sverker Sörlin and Paul Warde. New
Haven: Yale University Press. pp. 209-219.
Rachel Carson. 2013 [1962]. Silent Spring. In The Future of Nature, eds. Libby Robin, Sverker
Sörlin and Paul Warde. New Haven: Yale University Press. pp. 195-204.
Michael R. Dove. 1992. The Dialectical History of "Jungle" in Pakistan: An Examination of the
Relationship between Nature and Culture. Journal of Anthropological Research 48 (3):231253.
Ramachandra Guha. 2013 [1997] "Radical American Environmentalism and Wilderness
Preservation: A Third World Critique." (excerpt) In The Future of Nature, eds. Libby Robin,
Sverker Sörlin and Paul Warde. New Haven: Yale University Press. pp. 409-426.
September 25 – The Tragedy of the Commons (and its Critics)
Garrett Hardin. 1968. “The Tragedy of the Commons”, Science 162 (3859): 1243-1248.
J. Terrence McCabe. 1990. “Turkana Pastoralism: A Case against the Tragedy of the Commons.” Human
Ecology, 18(1): 81-103.
David Feeny et al. 1990. “The Tragedy of the Commons: Twenty-Two Years Later,” Human Ecology,
18(1): 1-19.
October 2 – Foundations in Environmental Anthropology
E. E. Evans-Pritchard. 2008 [1940] Interest in Cattle. In Environmental Anthropology: A Historical
Reader, eds. Michael R. Dove and Carol Carpenter. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
pp.118-137.
Raymond Firth. 2008 [1959]. Critical Pressures on Food Supply and Their Effects. In Environmental
Anthropology: A Historical Reader, eds. Michael R. Dove and Carol Carpenter. Malden, MA:
Blackwell Publishing. pp.202-222.
Marvin Harris. 1966. The Cultural Ecology of India's Sacred Cattle. Current Anthropology.
- Page 3 Syllabus subject to revision
Knowing the Environment
How is environmental knowledge produced and represented? How does knowledge shape and
mediate relations between people and the environment? How can we study ways of knowing within
social movements, scientific communities, and institutions of environmental governance?
October 9 - Beyond Nature and Culture? New Directions in the Anthropology of Environment
Paul Nadasdy, 2007. The Gift in the Animal: The Ontology of Hunting and Human-Animal Sociality.
American Ethnologist, 34(1): 25-43.
Dipesh Chakrabarty. 2009. The Climate of History: Four Theses
. Critical Inquiry, 35(2): 197-222.
Recommended:
Philippe Descola. 2013. Beyond Nature and Culture. Trans. Janet Llyod. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press. Chapter2&3, pp.32-90.
Timothy Mitchell. 2002. Rule of Experts: Egypt, Technopolitics, Modernity. Berkeley: University of
California Press. Chapter 1 "Can the Mosquito Speak?", pp. 19-53.
Stefan Helmreich. 2011. Nature/Culture/Seawater. American Anthropologist. 113(1): 132-144.
October 16 – Indigenous Knowledge and Social Movements (Guest Lecture: Anuradha Sen
Mukherjee)
Harold C. Conklin. 2008 [1954]. An Ethnoecological Approach to Shifting Agriculture. In
Environmental Anthropology: A Historical Reader, eds. Michael R. Dove and Carol Carpenter.
Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. pp.202-222.
Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing 2008 [1999] "Becoming a Tribal Elder, and Other Green Development
Fantasies. In Environmental Anthropology: A Historical Reader, eds. Michael R. Dove and
Carol Carpenter. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. pp.393-422.
Recommended:
Michael R. Dove. 2000. "The Life Cycle of Indigenous Knowledge, and the Case of Natural Rubber
Production." In Indigenous Environmental Knowledge and Its Transformations: Critical
Anthropological Perspectives, eds. Roy Ellen, Peter Parkes and Alan Bicker. Amsterdam:
OPA, pp. 213-252.
October 23 – Re-Thinking the Balance of Nature
Robert McC. Netting. 2008 [1990] Links and Boundaries: Reconsidering the Alpine Village as
Ecosystem." In Environmental Anthropology: A Historical Reader, eds. Michael R. Dove and
Carol Carpenter. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. pp.309-318.
James Fairhead and Melissa Leach. 1995. "Reading Forest History Backwards: The Interaction of
Policy and Local Land Use in Guinea's Forest-Savanna Mosaic, 1893-1993,"Environment and
History, 1(1): 55-91.
Recommended:
Ian Scoones, 1999. New Ecology and the Social Sciences: What Prospects for a Fruitful
Engagement? Annual Review of Anthropology, 28: 479-507.
October 30 – The Politics of Ignorance and Uncertainty
M. Thompson, M. Warburton and T. Hatley. 1986. Uncertainty on a Himalayan Scale: An Institutional
Theory of Environmental Perception and a Strategic Framework for the Sustainable
Development of the Himalaya. London: Milton Ash.
Governing the Environment, Governing People
How is the production of knowledge about the environment connected to its management? Is
environmental management or governance also a way of managing and governing people; if so, how?
How can we understand the increasingly prominent role of the market and private property as
instruments of environmental governance?
- Page 4 Syllabus subject to revision
November 6 – Inside Out: Studying Institutions of Environmental Governance
Andrew S. Mathews. 2005. Power/Knowledge, Power/Ignorance: Forest Fires and the State in
Mexico. Human Ecology 33(6): 795-820.
Laura Ogden. 2008. "The Everglades Ecosystem and the Politics of Nature." American
Anthropologist, 110(1): 21-32.
November 13 – The Politics of Conservation and Development
Peter Brosius. 1999. Green Dots, Pink Hearts: Displacing Politics from the Malaysian Rain Forest.
American Anthropologist, 101(1): 36-57.
Paige West and Dan Brockington. 2006. "An Anthropological Perspective on Some Unexpected
Consequences of Protected Areas," Conservation Biology, 20(3): 609-616.
Recommended:
Paige West, 2007. Conservation is Our Government Now. Durham: Duke University Press. Chapter
1, 6 &7, pp. 1-26, 183-238.
November 20 – Urban Ecologies
Nikhil Anand. 2011. "Pressure: The Politechnics of Water in Mumbai," Cultural Anthropology, 26(4):
542-564.
Anne Rademacher. 2009. When is Housing an Environmental Problem: Reforming Informality in
Kathmandu", Current Anthropology, 50(4).
Recommended:
Nik Heynen, Maria Kaika, and Erik Swyngedouw, "Urban Political Ecology: Politicizing the Production
of Urban Natures." In The Nature of Cities: Urban Political Ecology and the Politics of Urban
Metabolism, eds. Nik Heynen, Maria Kaika, and Erik Swyngedouw. London: Routledge, pp.119.
November 27 – Anthropological Approaches to Climate Change
McElwee, P.D. 2015. From conservation and development to climate: Anthropological engagements
with REDD+ in Vietnam. In: Climate Cultures: Anthropological Perspectives on Climate
Change, J. Barnes and M. Dove, eds. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Julie Cruikshank. 2014 [2007]. Melting Glaciers and Emerging Histories in the Saint Elias Mountains.
In The Anthropology of Climate Change: An Historical Reader, ed. Michael R. Dove.
Chichester: John Wiley and Sons, pp.261-275.
Jessica O'Reilly. 2012. The Rapid Disintegration of Projections: The West Antarctic Ice Sheet and the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Social Studies of Science, 42(5): 709-731.
December 4 – Nature and Capital
Donald MacKenzie. 2009. Making Things the Same: Gases, Emissions Rights, and the Politics of
Carbon Markets. Accounting, Organizations and Society 34: 440–455.
Joanes O. Atela. 2012. The Politics of Agricultural Carbon Finance: The Case of the Kenya
Agricultural Carbon Project. STEPS Working Paper 49, Brighton: STEPS Centre.
Recommended:
Fernando Coronil. 2000. Toward a Critique of Globalcentrism: Speculations on Capitalism's Nature.
Public Culture, 12(2) 351-74.
Christina Seeberg-Elverfeldt. 2010. Carbon Finance Possibilities for Agriculture, Forestry and Other
Land Use Projects in a Smallholder Context. Rome: Natural Resources Management and
Environment Department, FAO.
December 11 - Final Presentations
December 18 - Final Presentations
- Page 5 Syllabus subject to revision