Actualités et agenda
Nos formations
Présentation
This course was originally called 'Social Movements and the Environment' and offered in the L2. It is the same course. If you have attended the 'Social Movements and the Environment' course last year, please choose another optional course.
Over the last 40 years, the growing awareness of the profound impact of human activities on the planet, its ecosystems and its climate has given rise to a wide range of ‘social movements’ calling for the protection, conservation, and/or sustainable use of the environment and its resources. While many consider environmental issues – and their solutions – to be apolitical, championed by actors on different ends of the political spectrum and indistinctively cutting through class, race, gender and ethnicity (“We are all in this together”), this undergraduate course helps students unveil the different (and often conflicting) ethical positions and values underpinning the ‘environmental turn’ in contemporary political claim-making.
Following a broad introduction on the current state of the global environment, we will be drawing on political ecology, social movement theory and environmental ethics to critically explore some of the most vocal claims, theories and ideas surrounding ecological and environmental issues, including ‘deep ecology’, ‘ecomodernism’, ‘environmental justice’, ‘ecofeminism’, and the recent ‘transition movements’. Where do these movements come from? What are their conceptual and political roots? What influences have shaped the way they have emerged? What ethical and epistemological positions can we find in their discourses and narratives?
Learning objectives
- To build student’s knowledge of the key ‘social movements’ for the environment and the political claims emerging from them
- Understanding that environmental issues are anything but apolitical and learning how to unveil the values underlying claims for the environment
- Discover and critically appraise some of the seminal texts, theories and legal tools forming the basis of the environmentalist movement
- To develop students' understanding of compelling critiques of scientific inquiry related to the environment without, at the same time, playing into the hands of deliberate anti-science agendas
- To give students the understanding and analytical skills they require to study and work further in the field
Modalités
9x 2hour lectures.
This course will be validated by a 2h exam (covid allowing). Students will answer 2 questions out of a choice of 4, based on the readings of the course.
Ressources
<b>Session 1 – The state of the environment in 2019</b>|||| <b>Session 2 – Social movements & the environment: science & politics</b>|| Required readings|| <ul> <li>della Porta and Diani (2006) Social movements : an introduction (Chapter 1)</li> <li>Martinez-Alier (2002) The Environmentalism of the Poor (Chapter 1)</li> </ul> Recommended additional readings|| <ul> <li>Guha and Martínez Alier. <i>Varieties of environmentalism: essays North and South</i>. Routledge, 2013 (Intro + Chapter 1)</li> <li>Martinez-Alier (2002) The Environmentalism of the Poor. UN World Summit on Sustainable Development</li> </ul> || <b>Session 3 – Environmental justice movements</b>|| Required readings|| <ul> <li>Taylor (2000) The Rise of the Environmental Justice Paradigm: Injustice Framing and the Social Construction of Environmental Discourses. <i>American Behavioral Scientist</i>, Vol. 43 No. 4: 508-580</li> <li>Schlosberg (2004) Reconceiving Environmental Justice: Global Movements and Political Theories. <i>Environmental Politics</i>, Vol.13, No.3, Autumn 2004, 517 – 540</li> </ul> Recommended additional readings|| <ul> <li>Bullard (1990) Dumping In Dixie: Race, Class, and Environmental Quality. Routledge</li> <li>Harvey (1996) Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference. Wiley-Blackwell</li> <li>Holifield, Porter & Walker (2009) Spaces of Environmental Justice: Frameworks for Critical Engagement. Antipode Vol. 41 No. 4</li> </ul> || <b> </b>|| <b>Session 4 – Food movements, food sovereignty & food justice</b>|| <b> </b>|| Required readings|| <ul> <li>Alkon & Agyeman (2011) <i>Cultivating Food Justice: Race, Class, and Sustainability</i>. MIT Press (Introduction)</li> <li>Patel, R. (2009) Grassroots Voices: Food Sovereignty. <i>Journal of Peasant Studies</i>, 36(3): 663-706</li> </ul> Recommended additional readings|| <ul> <li>Reynolds & Cohen (2016) <i>Beyond the kale: urban agriculture and social justice activism in New York City</i>. </li> </ul> || <b>Session 5 – Political ecology & ecofeminism</b>|| Required readings|| <ul> <li>Robbins, P (2012). <i>Political Ecology: A Critical Introduction</i>. Wiley. <b>(Intro+Chap1)</b></li> <li>Warren (2000) <i>Ecofeminist Philosophy: A Western Perspective on What It Is and Why It Matters</i>. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers <b>(Intro+Chap1)</b></li> </ul> Recommended additional readings|| <ul> <li>Robbins, P (2012). <i>Political Ecology: A Critical Introduction</i>. Wiley.</li> <li>Warren (2000<i>) Ecofeminist Philosophy: A Western Perspective on What It Is and Why It Matters</i>. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers</li> <li>Leach & Mearns (1996) The Lie of the Land. Challenging Received Wisdom on the African Environment. </li> </ul> || <b>Session 6 – Deep ecology movement</b>|| Required readings|| <ul> <li>Naess (1995) The Deep Ecological Movement. Some Philosophical Aspects. In Sessions (ed.) <i>Deep Ecology for the Twenty-First Century: Readings on the Philosophy and Practice of the New Environmentalism</i>. Shambhala</li> <li>Lovelock (1990) Hands up for the Gaia hypothesis. <i>Nature</i> 334</li> </ul> Recommended additional readings|| <ul> <li>Sessions (1995) <i>Deep Ecology for the Twenty-First Century: Readings on the Philosophy and Practice of the New Environmentalism</i>. Shambhala </li> <li>Lovelock, J. E. (1972). Gaia as seen through the atmosphere. <i>Atmospheric Environment</i> (1967), 6(8), 579–580</li> </ul> || <b>Session 7 – Degrowth </b>|| <b> </b>|| Required readings|| <ul> <li>D'Alisa, Demaria, and Kallis (2014) <i>Degrowth: A Vocabulary for a New Era</i>. Routledge (Introduction)</li> <li>Martínez-Alier, J., Pascual, U., Vivien, F. D., & Zaccai, E. (2010). Sustainable de-growth: Mapping the context, criticisms and future prospects of an emergent paradigm<i>. Ecological economics</i>, 69(9), 1741-1747. </li> </ul> || <b>Session 8 – Transition mo
- Environmentalism of the Poor vs. Environmentalism of the Rich - Sunita Narain https://sustainability.asu.edu/media/wrigley-lecture-series/sunita-narain/
- Meet the ecomodernists: ignorant of history and paradoxically old-fashioned – George Monbiot/The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2015/sep/24/meet-the-ecomodernists-ignorant-of-history-and-paradoxically-old-fashioned
- Change the world, not yourself, or how Arendt called out Thoreau - Katie Fitzpatrick.
https://aeon.co/ideas/change-the-world-not-yourself-or-how-arendt-called-out-thoreau
- Globe to gut: inside Big Food - Felicity Lawrence/Nature https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00897-1
- Post-work: the radical idea of a world without jobs - Andy Beckett/The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jan/19/post-work-the-radical-idea-of-a-world-without-jobs