GEOG 431 Culture and Natural Resource Management
Dr. Martha Geores, instructor
Class time and place: Tuesday 2-4:30, room 2166 Lefrak Hall
Office hours: M 11-12, Tues 11:30-12:30; and by appointment
Telephone: 301 405-4064
Email: mgeores@umd.edu
Course Syllabus
Purpose and Goals -
Culture and Natural Resource Management is an upper level geography course. While there are no prerequisites for the course, if you have not taken a geography course before, there may be supplemental assignments to help you “come up to speed”.
Some of you are taking the course as part of your ENSP program because of its environmental focus. As you will see from the course materials, it is focused on the intersection of human and physical systems, particularly on natural resource management. Political ecology encompasses a number of disciplines and belief systems about the ownership and use of natural resources. One consistent theme of the study of political ecology is an emphasis on justice in the resource use pattern. To come to any conclusion of what is just in certain cases you must understand the cultures of all of the relevant stakeholders and how they relate to each other on multiple scales. The goal of the course is for you to learn about how culture influences different patterns of resource management. Through the readings, case studies, nonprint media, and class discussion you will strive to understand important cultural, political, and economic influence this process.
Accommodations, university rules, and classroom rules
Students are expected to attend every class and complete all assigned work.
If you have disabilities, learning or otherwise, you should visit the Disability Support Office to fill out appropriate forms that will tell me what accommodations to make. These may include testing formats, class participation difficulties, and paper writing. Since you know now when papers are due for the semester, I will expect everyone to turn them in on time on the same day. Please let me know what arrangements are necessary.
Academic honesty
Plagiarism is the use of another person’s work as if it were your own and will not be tolerated. If I believe that there has been plagiarism on an assignment, I will inform you of my determination and you will receive a zero for the assignment. Cases will be referred to the Student Conduct Office. Remember that on each assignment you must write and sign the honor pledge. “I have neither given nor received any unauthorized help on this assignment.”
University rules
The University requires that all work must be completed in order for you to pass the course.
Classroom rules
This is an upper level class and I expect that there will be no classroom decorum issues, however, just in case, you should know my policy. Cell phones, pagers, instant messaging, IPODS, Blackberries, laptops, alarm clocks, cd/tapes (does anyone use tapes?), DVDs – must all be in their off positions. These devices are annoying, rude and make me lose my train of thought – and you don’t want to do that! If a cell phone rings or pager rings …., I will ask you to leave class for the day. Please don’t make me collect these devices before class.
Many of the issues we will be discussing are “politically charged.” All views are welcome and should be freely expressed; that is what classroom discussion is all about. Voicing different opinions is part of class participation, and please, do not be silent if you have a view or an opinion that will challenge others. There are no right or wrong answers.
Speak up! I’m deaf, no kidding. I have also found that when I can’t hear there are others in the class who also cannot hear because you speak too softly, mumble, cover your mouth, or do not face the class when you talk. You get 2 chances to be heard, then you get placed on my “do not call” list – not a good thing.
This upper level course involves reading, writing and class participation. There will be two exams: a midterm and a final. There will be four papers:
Required:
Critical Political Ecology: The politics of environmental science, 2003 reprinted 2004, 2005.Forsyth, Tim. NY Routledge Press. ISBN 0-415-1853-7
Political Ecology across Spaces, Scales and Social Groups.2004.
Paulson and Gezon (eds)
Political Ecology: an integrative approach to geography and environment-development studies, 2003. Zimmerer and Bassett (eds) Guilford Press. ISBN 1 57230 916 4
On line articles.
Nonprint media shown in class and are all available at the
university
Recommended:
Netting Cultural Ecology
The Commons in the new millennium: challenges and adaptation 2003. Dolsak and Ostrom (editors). MIT Press. ISBN 0 262 54142 4
People and Forests 2000 Gibson, McKean, Ostrom editors. MIT Press ISBN #0-2662-57137-4
Balancing on an Alp. 1981 Robert Netting.
*Acceptable books for book reviews, you will choose one of the following books for the regular assignment and if you do extra credit, you may choose another one.
Karl Zimmerer, Nature’s Geography: New Lessons for Conservation in Development
Faithi Zereini and Wolfgang Jaeschke, Water in the Middle
East and in
Thomas Bassett, African Savannas: Global Narratives and Local Knowledge of Environmental Change
Richard Black, Targeting Development: Critical Perspectives on the Millennium Development Goals
Lansky, Beyond the Beauty Strip
Barry, Rising Tide,
Geores, Common Ground: the Study of Ownership in the
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For Grading purposes the course is worth 1225 Points.
Midterms = 175 points each
Final = 250 points
Scale essay 100 points
Book review 125 points
Term paper =150 points
Class participation= 100 points, 50 based on attendance and 50 for contributions in the discussion. Contribution may take the form of volunteering to be prepared for questions in class.
Class Journal 150 points– Each of you is expected to keep a class journal. In this journal you will answer the questions posed on the syllabus. The journal should be a reflection on the readings and any other materials you would like to use. I suggest that you complete your journal entries before coming to class. Writing in this journal will help you clarify your thoughts about the readings before coming to class. Journals will be reviewed on a staggered schedule and will all be due on Dec 4. Your life will be much easier if you do the journals as you go along. I can spot a last minute job pretty well.
Extra Credit= 75 points and there may be opportunities for more
*I like to see improvement throughout the semester so all is not lost if you get off to a rough start.
OUTLINE OF THE COURSE
Unit 1 Introduction
September 4 What is culture and what are natural resources?
How do culture and natural resources intersect?
What does it mean to “manage a natural resource”?
Video – Razing
Sept. 11 The Disciplinary Heritage of Political Ecology
Cultural Ecology was the first framework for studying cultures and natural resource management. What was wrong with it?
Paulson, Chapter 2 “Politics, Ecologies, Genealogies”
Zimmerer, ‘Cultural Ecology: at the interface with political ecology” Progress in Human Geography 30 (1): 63-78.
Methods of Cultural Ecology – Volunteers to read Netting, “Cultural Ecology” and answer questions in class about it.
Video – Rivers of Destiny QH540.J68 1999
Sept. 18 Birth of Political Ecology
How is your view of culture and natural resource management shaped by politics?
Forsyth, Chapter 1 “Political ecology and the politics of environmental science”
Zimmerer, Political Ecology: Chapter 1
Term paper topics due
Theoretical Frameworks for Studying Culture and Natural
Resource Management
September 25 – Scale – An Overarching concept for theoretical frameworks
Resource Definition – Is it Local or Is it Global?
Paulson Chapter 1 “Place power and difference”
Chapter 8” Finding the global in the local”
Geores, Chapter 4 in Dolzak and Ostrom, “The Relationship between natural resource definition and scale: considering the forest”
Gibson, People and Forests, Chapter 3: “Small is Beautiful, but is Large Better?”
Zimmerer, Political Ecology, Chapter 14, “Future Directions in Political Ecology”
October 2 Midterm exam #1
Environmental Science as “Science”
If science has politics, who is seeking the truth?
Forsyth, Chapters 2 “Environmental science and myths”
Chapter 4 “Social Framings of Environmental Science”
Zimmerer Chapter 8 “Environmental Causation and Social Causation”
Oct. 9 – Laws of Environmental Science
Why does it matter that environmental science does not have laws?
Forsyth, Chapters 3
Zimmerer, Political Ecology Chapter 12, “The Production of Nature
Paulson, Chapters 9 and 14
October 16 – Environmental Science as Social Science
How and why does it matter to you that environmental science is a social science?
Forsyth chapter 4, “Social framings of environmental science”
Paulson, chapter 7, “The Political Ecology of Consumption”,
chapter 9, “Symbolic Action and Soil Fertility”
Oct. 16 Short paper – Scale is a crucial concept in
natural resource management. How is this
statement related to environmental justice?
October 23 Common property as a theoretical framework
What are some reasons to use the common property framework?
Gibson People and Forests, Chapter 2 – “Common Property, what is it …”; Chapter 9 “Forests, People and Governance.”
Dolsak The Commons in the new millennium, Chapter 1 “The Challenges of the Commons”
Forsyth chapter 6, “Enforcing and contesting boundaries: boundary organizations and social movements
5 peer reviewed references for term paper due
October 30 Conflict in resource use
What is the role of conflict in natural resource management?
Paulson, Chapter 3, “The fight for the west”
Chapter 4 “Whose water?”
Kajembe, Mbwilo et als “Resource
use conflicts in Usangu Plains, Mbarali District,
Duffy, 2006 “The potential and pitfalls of global environmental governance: the politics of transfrontier conservation areas” Political Geography 25(1): 89-112.
Midterm exam #2 November 6
Nov. 13 Local knowledge
How is local knowledge exploited, and with what result?
Forsyth, chapter 5 “The co-production of environmental knowledge and political activism”
Chapter 8 “Democratizing environmental explanations”
Paulson, chapter10 “Gendered
Practices and Landscapes in the
Chapter 11, “Undermining Modernity”
Nov. 20 Meeting with Dr. Geores about papers and journals
Class time will be spent reviewing progress.
Paper topics and progress can be discussed, journals reviewed, final exam questions addressed.
Outline of term paper due
November 27 Bio-prospecting
How is bio-prospecting a matter of scale?
Paulson, chapter 13, “A political Ecology of Bioprospecting”
Chapter 12 “Shade”
Chapter 14, “The Emergence of Collective Ethnic Identities and Alternative Political Ecologies in the Colombian Pacific Rainforest”
Holl, Karen et als “Knowledge and
Perception in
Adger, “Social and ecological resilience: are they related?” Progress in Human Geography 24(3): 347-364
Dec 4 Sustainability
How important is culture to sustainability?
Sneddon, Howarth, Norgaard,2006 “Sustainability in a post-Brundtland World”, Ecological Economics 57(2):253-268.
Zimmerer, Chapter 5 “Modernity and the Production of the Spanish Waterscape”
Chapter 2 “Balancing Conservation with Development in Marine-Dependent Communities”
Delang, “The Political Ecology of
Deforestation in
Journals due December 4
Dec. 11 Last day of class
Finish any topics undone
Review for the final
Term papers due Dec 11
Final TBA
Video: “Helping Ourselves!” JZ1318.L5413 2005 vol4
“When the Cows come home” JZ1318.L5413 2005
Video: “Science for Survival” HD6073.A292 I46
Video: “
Video: “Feast or Famine”HD9016.F43 2004
Video: “Land of Plenty,
Video: “Six Billion and Beyond” HB871 .S59