Unit information: Conflicted Environments: Studying environmental social movements from the grassroots in 2022/23

Unit name	Conflicted Environments: Studying environmental social movements from the grassroots
Unit code	GEOGM0036
Credit points	20
Level of study	M/7
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24)
Unit director	Dr. Naomi Millner
Open unit status	Not open
Units you must take before you take this one (pre-requisite units)	None
Units you must take alongside this one (co-requisite units)	None
Units you may not take alongside this one	None
School/department	School of Geographical Sciences
Faculty	Faculty of Science

Unit Information

This unit examines the relationships between violent conflict and natural resources, with particular attention to political ecology perspectives and social justice concerns. With a non-exclusive geographical focus on case studies drawn from Latin America across the last century, we explore how the histories of coloniality, development, natural resource management, agriculture, environmental governance, and civil struggle intersect in particular times and places in relation to the elaboration of conservation thought, discourses and practices, to exacerbate tensions between groups or create new kinds of poverty and exclusion.

Why is this unit important?

Conceptually, the course functions to introduce students to the ideas that underpin political ecology – an interdisciplinary area of study that explores how political transformations and environmental transformations are critically connected. Contextually, we draw on contemporary work that interrogates how the machinery of global conservation move around the world and the effects they produce as they are woven into places already shaped by inequality, colonial histories, and power relation. In the cases we focus on, we prioritise the experience of small-scale farmers (campesinos), Indigenous groups, social and agricultural movements, and those dispossessed by war or politics – actors often overlooked in the history of social analysis. Cases we look at cover conflicts arising in relation to forest conservation, food security/sovereignty, Indigenous rights and nature- knowledges, resource extractivism, anthropogenic climatic and biodiversity change, the rise of the military in conservation, and the ‘slow’ violence caused by toxic residues.

How does this unit fit into your programme of study?

Students completing the unit will have applied their theoretical and practical learning to the significant conceptual and concrete challenges of rethinking models of development in dialogue with new environmental challenges. Specific case-study analysis will include research in areas like: new geographies of Global Conservation; Indigenous constitutional governance; transnational peasant movements; eco-tourism; seed sharing; Indigenous mapping; decolonial and critical pedagogies; rural to urban transnational social movements; the rights of nature; Indigenous methodologies; approaches to the commons; food sovereignty etc. Critical thinking developed in this unit will help you assess issues of conservation, agriculture, conflict and environmental politics for the twenty-first century.

Your learning on this unit

An overview of content

This unit responds to the following animating questions:

• What is political ecology, and how does its concepts inflect the way we understand environmental conflict?
• What kind of knowledge and power relations are in play within contemporary environmental conflicts in Latin America?
• How have, and how do, contemporary global conservation agendas exacerbate historical forms of conflict and/or dispossession?
• What would it mean to ‘decolonise’ environmental thinking and/or governance?
• How will students, personally, be different as a result of the unit?

On completing this unit, students will have:

• Developed critical analytical skills for working with case studies specific to a political ecology approach, and be confident to apply these to contexts in the Global South;
• Engaged with a range of curated academic literatures from political ecology and cognate disciplines, leading them to argue convincingly on the state of global development, contemporary agricultural policies and contemporary social movement practices;
• Established a repertoire of advanced research skills, including the analysis of primary and secondary data, leading to the drawing of meaningful conclusions about contexts of environmental conflict;
• Enhanced writing and presentation skills on these topics, including through collaborative work.

Learning Outcomes

At the completion of this unit, students will able to:

1. Identify and explain key concepts and theories in political ecology, feminist political ecology, decolonial and critical development studies, and critical political economy in geographical and cognate interdisciplinary scholarship;
2. Analyse and problematise the political and economic forces that underpin violence and conflict within biodiverse environments, and how the institutions of global conservation may mediate but also exacerbate tensions;
3. Problematise the place of the modern state within global conservation and development practices and identify new tensions emerging nationally and transnationally, especially in relation to violent or post-conflict environments;
4. Situate the practices and knowledge produced by social movements and rural communities as contributions to understanding the politics of conservation and environments in the contemporary world;

How you will learn

The unit will be taught through a blended combination of online and, if possible, in-person teaching, including

• online resources
• synchronous group workshops, seminars, tutorials and/or office hours
• asynchronous individual activities and guided reading for students to work through at their own pace
• Practical sessions, which allow for applied learning

How you will be assessed

Tasks which help you learn and prepare for your summative tasks (formative):

You will present in one seminar on that seminar's assigned readings for about 5-10 minutes. Each presentation summarizes central themes in the reading for that week and poses issues for discussion. Feedback will be given to within one week of their presentation. Practice in writing will be obtained through the weekly reflections which, although forming part of the summative assessment, form only a small percentage of the marks. You may also write an optional blog for the Programme blog, to obtain feedback on your writing.

Tasks which count towards your unit mark (summative):

1. Participation grade (30% of total):

PART A. During weeks 13-21, you will write a short (ca. 500-700 word) reflection on the weekly seminar readings, to be submitted 24 hours before each seminar. The marks for the best seven (out of nine) of these weekly reflections will form 50% of the participation mark.

PART B. Group presentation. In week 21, you will present in groups of 4-5 that they have been allocated into at the start of term. The presentation should be based on either: a book the group has read together related to the course; a case study related to one or more of the seminars; or, a current news item in which key ideas of the course are illuminated. Presentations should be 10-12 minutes followed by 5 minutes of Q&A. Presentations will be assessed according to their communication of key concepts from the unit; original analysis; presentation style; and flair. Group presentation marks will form 50% of the participation mark.

2. 3000-word essay (70% of total). The summative essay will address the Intended Learning Outcomes identified above. In particular, the essay will focus on a critical analysis of the intersections between political ecology, coloniality and conservation/agriculture/environmental politics within a particular context of interest to the student. Coursework will be set in week 19.

When assessment does not go to plan:

1A. Your mark for the weekly reflections will be based on only seven out of the nine weekly submissions, meaning that your mark will not suffer if you do less well, or even do not submit reflections, in two of the weeks. If you submit fewer than seven reflections, without validated exceptional or extenuating circumstances, a mark of zero will be used for each missing reflection.
1B. If you miss the group presentation or cannot participation due to validated exceptional or extenuating circumstances, you will be set an alternative assignment involving an individual recorded presentation based on an area of interest.

2. If you are unable to submit the 3000-word essay due to exceptional or extenuating circumstances, you will be set an alternative essay of the same length for completion before the supplementary and resit assessment period.

Resources

If this unit has a Resource List, you will normally find a link to it in the Blackboard area for the unit. Sometimes there will be a separate link for each weekly topic.

If you are unable to access a list through Blackboard, you can also find it via the Resource Lists homepage. Search for the list by the unit name or code (e.g. GEOGM0036).

How much time the unit requires
Each credit equates to 10 hours of total student input. For example a 20 credit unit will take you 200 hours of study to complete. Your total learning time is made up of contact time, directed learning tasks, independent learning and assessment activity.

See the Faculty workload statement relating to this unit for more information.

Assessment
The Board of Examiners will consider all cases where students have failed or not completed the assessments required for credit. The Board considers each student's outcomes across all the units which contribute to each year's programme of study. If you have self-certificated your absence from an assessment, you will normally be required to complete it the next time it runs (this is usually in the next assessment period).
The Board of Examiners will take into account any extenuating circumstances and operates within the Regulations and Code of Practice for Taught Programmes.