Nature, Society & Social Power

GEOG71212 Nature, Society & Social Power 15 Semester 2 Postgraduate Taught Level 7 Erik Swyngedouw Unit coordinator Mark Usher Unit coordinator Geography 1 FHEQ level (Framework for Higher Education Qualifications) ' Masters/Integrated Masters P4 ' European Credit Transfer & Accumulation System Rating : 7.5 The course examines the interrelationship between humans and nature, with a particular emphasis on the how social power relations produce and change socio-physical conditions. The course starts from the premise that nature and society are not separate, but intimately interwoven. They are mutually intertwined and co-evolving. The course will draw on a variety of critical theoretical perspectives (Marxist, post-Marxist, Critical, Foucauldian) and illustrate the argument with a series of case studies. The course will consist of 10 two-hour lectures and 10 one-hour seminars (reading sessions, video and documentary presentations, discussion sessions, etc…) The course examines the interrelationship between humans and nature, with a particular emphasis on the how social power relations produce and change socio-physical conditions. The course starts from the premise that nature and society are not separate, but intimately interwoven. They are mutually intertwined and co-evolving. The course will draw on a variety of critical theoretical perspectives (Marxist, post-Marxist, Critical, Foucauldian) and illustrate the argument with a series of case studies. The course will consist of 10 two-hour lectures and 10 one-hour seminars (reading sessions, video and documentary presentations, discussion sessions, etc…) <ul> <li>To theorize how the social and physical world interact;</li> <li>To understand critically the entanglements of social and physical conditions under capitalism;</li> <li>To provide a critical review of the socio-ecological dynamics of capitalism;</li> <li>To offer insight in the processes through which particular environmental conditions come about and are changed;</li> <li>To explore the key actors that shape environmental activities and their spatial configurations and outcomes;</li> <li>To demonstrate how socio-environmental processes are also political processes;</li> <li>To illustrate these processes by means of concrete historical-geographical examples.</li></ul> By the end of the course unit, you should be able to:<ul> <li>Understand the key concepts and theories that underpin political ecology;</li> <li>Be familiar with an outline of historical-geographical materialist understandings of the world;</li> <li>Be able to think critically about the relationships between people and their environments;</li> <li>Understand the political significance of socio-ecological processes, problems, and                conditions;</li> <li>Be able to start your own research project on socio-nature interactions and dynamics</li></ul>  <ul> <li>Critically assess a range of perspectives related to the question of nature, society and social power</li> <li>Critically assess how nature and society are mutually constituted through a range of social power relations</li></ul> <ul> <li style="border: medium none;">Think critically about and and reflect on questions of socio-ecological change</li> <li>To assess the merits of contrasting theoretic and explanations</li> <li>To relate theoretical argument with empirical evidence, including the construction of theoretically informed real-life research</li></ul> <ul> <li>To translate theory into politics</li> <li>To assess and formula socio-ecological policies and practices</li></ul> <ul> <li>Motivation and self-directed learning</li> <li>Awareness of responsibility as a global citizen</li></ul> Week 1 - (ES) Part 1: Introduction and Overview/Part 2: Circuits of Capital (1): The Socio-Ecological Dynamics of CapitalWeek 2 – (ES) Part 1: The Circuits of Capital (2): Combined and Uneven Socio-Ecological Crisis/Part 2: The Production of NatureWeek 3 – (MU) Knowledge Politics: Science, Ecology and PowerWeek 4 – (MU) Governmentality and the Environment: Activating the Citizen in SingaporeWeek 5 - (ES) The Power of Water – Past and Present: State, Nature and Political PowerWeek 6 – (ES) Cities, Nature, and Social Power: The Urbanization of Nature (Guayaquil)Week 7 — (MU) Natural Capital: Reframing Value in the Environment SectorWeeks 8/9 reading weeksWeek 10 - (MU) Infrastructualising Nature: Turning Nature into AssetsWeek 11 (ES) Nature and Political Projects: The Contested Production of Environments II:  Water, Fascism and the Hydro-modernity of SpainWeek 12 - (ES) Saving Nature(s)… or the End of Politics: The Sustainability Paradox The course is delivered through a range of lectures, seminars, and student reading. Each week will comprise of 2hr lectures and 1 hr seminar. All teaching material will be available on Blackboard. Both lectures and seminars will be on-line and available as pod-casts after the lectures/events for those who could not attend the live lecture/seminar. Depending on the COVID19 situation, a small number of seminars will be held face-to-face. 0 Other 100% The assessment will be 100% based on a 3500-word essay (exc. of bibliography) on a theme decided in consultation with the course convener. <ul> <li>One-to-one on-line feedback on course essay outline</li> <li>One-to-one on-line course work surgery</li> <li>Written feedback on course essay</li></ul> None. MSc Environmental Governance MSc Environmental Governance PGDT Taught Component Optional MSc Environmental Governance MSc Environmental Governance PGDT Taught Component Optional Y Braun B., Castree N (Eds.) (1998) Remaking Reality. Routledge, London.Bryant, R. (Ed.) (2015) The International Handbook of Political Ecology.  Edward Elgar, Cheltenham.Ernstson H., and Swyngedouw E. (Eds.) (2019) Urban Political Ecology in the Anthropo-obscene: Interruptions and Possibilities. London: Routledge.Forsyth, T. 2003. Critical Political Ecology. London: Routledge.Harcourt, Wendy, and Ingrid L. Nelson. 2015. Practising Feminist Political Ecologies. Edited by Wendy Harcourt and Ingrid L Nelson. London: Zed Books.Harvey, D. (1985). The Geo-Politics of Capitalism. In D. Gregory & J. Urry (Eds.), Social Relations and Spatial Structures (pp. 128-163). London: Macmillan.Harvey D. (1981) Limits to Capital. Blackwell, OxfordHarvey D. (1996). Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference. Oxford: Blackwell.Heynen N., Kaika M., and Swyngedouw E. (2006) (Eds.) In the Nature of Cities – Urban Political Ecology and the Politics of Urban Metabolism. Routledge, London and New YorkPerreault, T., Bridge G. and McCarthy J.  (Eds.) (2015) The Routledge Handbook of Political Ecology. Routledge, LondonRobins Paul (2011) Political Ecology: A Critical Introduction. Wiley-Blackwell.Rocheleau, Dianne E, Barbara Thomas-Slayter, and Esther Wangari, eds. 1996. Feminist Political Ecology: Global Issues and Local Experience. London and New York: Routledge.Smith N. (1984). Uneven Development: Nature, Capital and the Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell.Swyngedouw E (2000) “The Marxian Alternative – Historical Geographical Materialism and the Political Economy of Capitalism”, in Barnes T., Sheppard E. (Eds.)  Reader in Economic Geography, Blackwell, Oxford, pp. 41-59.Swyngedouw E. (2004) Flows of Power – Water and the Political Ecology of Urbanisation in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Oxford: University Press.Swyngedouw, Erik, and Nikolas C Heynen. 2003. “Urban Political Ecology, Justice and the Politics of Scale.” Antipode 35: 898–998.Swyngedouw E (2004) “Scaled Geographies. Nature, Place, and the Politics of Scale”, in McMaster R., Sheppard E. (Eds.) Scale and Geographic Inquiry: Nature, Society and Method. Blackwell Publishers, Oxford and Cambridge, Mass., pp. 129-153.Swyngedouw E. (2010) “Trouble with Nature – Ecology as the New Opium for the People”, in Hillier, J. and P. Healey (Eds.) Conceptual Challenges for Planning Theory. Ashgate, Farnham, pp. 299-320.Swyngedouw E. (2012) (with Ian Cook) “Cities, social cohesion and the environment: towards a future research agenda”, Urban Studies 49(9), pp. 1938 - 1958Swyngedouw E. (2015) Liquid Power: Contested Hydro-Modernities in 20th Century Spain. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.Swyngedouw E. (2015) “Depoliticized Environments and the Promises of the Anthropocene”, in Bryant R. (ed.) International Handbook of Political Ecology. E. Elgar, London, pp. 131-145.Wittfogel K. (1957) Oriental Despotism. Yale University Press/Oxford University Press Lectures 20 Seminars 10 0 120