Unit information: Conflicted Environments: Studying environmental social movements from the grassroots in 2019/20

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
Pre-requisites	None
Co-requisites	None, although GEOGM0028 recommended
School/department	School of Geographical Sciences
Faculty	Faculty of Science

Description including Unit Aims

This unit will bring a postcolonial/decolonial politics of knowledge into dialogue with contemporary environmental and political debates, with an emphasis on conflict, resistance, governance, and critical pedagogy. The unit aims to introduce students to the need to think critically about the history and legacies of development, as well as, crucially, beyond it into how new social movements, pedagogies, and practices for sustainability, conflict resolution, and environmental and social justice.

Drawing on contemporary developments in a range of interdisciplinary research areas, from cultural geographies, critical political economies, critical pedagogies, political ecologies, and political geographies the unit will address the need to decolonise both development thinking and practice. Decolonising practices and critiques will be drawn from contemporary work in areas including: concepts of indigeneity, environmental governance, agro-ecology, food security and food sovereignty, trans-national social movements, anthropogenic climatic and bio-diversity change, and peace studies. Specific case-study analysis will include research in areas like: indigenous constitutional governance (ex. sumac kawsay and buen vivir); the Anthropocene; urban greening; trans-national peasant movements; permaculture; seed sharing; indigenous mapping; decolonial and critical pedagogies; decolonising higher education curricula; rural to urban trans-national social movements; the rights of nature; political experiments in micro-geo-politics; indigenous methodologies; indigenous law; plant agencies; new approaches to the commons; etc. Specific geographic foci will include case analyses drawn from research in Latin and South America (Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Ecuador, Peru); South Asia (Pakistan, India); South East Asia (Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand); Australasia and southern Polynesia (Australia, Aotearoa-New Zealand, Fiji); western Europe (UK, France, Spain, Netherlands, Germany), and parts of North America (NW Canada, Northern Canada, North Central United States, etc).

Students completing the unit will have applied their theoretical and practical learning to the significant conceptual and concrete challenges of decolonising development. The aim of the unit is to deliver practically grounded instruction in decolonial praxis, which complements more theoretical learning in corollary units also taught on the course like: Theorising Society and Space; Affect, Biopolitics and Technology; Postcolonial Matters; and Experimental Geographical Practices. The unit would also be open to students in other FSSL Schools, and would have interest across sociology and politics, policy studies, education, and socio-legal studies.

Intended Learning Outcomes

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

• Identify key concepts and theories in decoloniality and critical development studies, critical pedagogy, political ecology, agro-ecology, and critical political economy in geographical and cognate interdisciplinary scholarship;
• Develop an effective knowledge of the political and economic forces constituting development, together with an understanding of how development practices have sought to extend, address and/or mediate the effects of imperialism and colonialism;
• Analyse key differences internal to theorizations of development geographies, environmental politics, political ecology, and indigenous studies;
• Understand the economic and structural legacies of imperialism and the on-going practices of decolonisation, and to understand the scalar interaction of development policies as part of the decolonisation processes for postcolonial communities;
• Become familiar with theories of development and underdevelopment, and to examine how theories of development and underdevelopment have informed state responses to the challenges of economic development, industrialisation, globalisation;
• Interpret development practices which emerged among different states and within trans-national organisations and movements in the ongoing political and epistemological struggles of decolonisation;
• Synthesise knowledge acquired during compulsory modules and apply understanding gained of historic challenges facing decolonising states to evaluate the different developmental challenges faced by postcolonial states over the course of the 20^th and 21^st centuries.

Situate the debates and their cross-overs across different interdisciplinary contexts appreciating both shared conceptual genealogies and research applications.

Teaching Information

The unit comprises a minimum of 20 contact hours across ten timetabled sessions. 8 two-hour discussion-based seminars will be based on set readings, with a 2 hour introduction and 2 hour conclusion, for a total of 10. Participation in discussions will contribute to student success in the course and preparation is essential. Key readings for the week will be done in advance.

Assessment Information

Formative: Each student will present in one seminar on that seminar’s assigned readings for about fifteen minutes in length. Each presentation summarizes central themes in the reading for that week and poses issues for discussion. A copy of the presentation will be distributed to the class at the beginning of the two-hour seminar. Feedback will be given to the students within one week of their presentation.

Summative: One 4000-word essay (100%). Students may choose to examine either: an object or text through which engage key topics and concepts within the unit via a creative/productive means; or, examine a self-chosen topic on a subject of their interest arising from the unit. Guidance will be provided on an individual basis for each student, and students will be supported in their development of ideas and design of the research papers.

The summative essay must address the Intended Learning Outcomes identified above. In particular, the essay must focus on a critical analysis of the intersections between coloniality and ecological development within a particular context of interest to the student. This may be done through a supported, self- identified and self-directed analysis of specific case studies, either in the Global South or Global North (ex. Buen Vivir, Seeds for Life); an analysis of social movements seeking changes to specific forms of thinking and practice (ex. EZLN, Navdanya, Chipko, The Green Belt Movement); an analysis of a specific development or post-development text, object, or practice (ex. degrowth, indigenous curriculum reform, kata, johads, etc), or a debate within the academic literature on postdevelopment and decoloniality (ex. Escobar, Mignolo, Dinerstein, Ranta, etc.). The object of the essay is to explore critically the implications of decolonising approaches to particular development trajectories and practices, with an eye to assessing their governance, feasibility, limitations and possibilities.

Reading and References

de Sousa Santos, B. 2014. Epistemologies of the South. Abingdon: Routledge.

Escobar, A. 1995. Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Kothari, U., ed. 2005. A Radical History of Development Studies: Individuals, Institutions and Ideologies. London: Zed Books.

Mignolo, W. and A. Escobar. 2010. Globalisation and the Decolonial Option. Abingdon: Routledge.

Rodney, W. 1982. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Washington, DC: Howard University Press.

Smith, L. T. 1999. Decolonising Methodologies: Research and Indigenous People. London: Zed Books and University of Otago Press.

Wainwright, J. 2003. Decolonising Development: Colonial Power and the Maya. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

There is no core text-book for this unit. Instead students will be required to read a selection of journal articles, book chapters and books as specified on the reading list circulated at the start of the course.