Environmental Anthropology

Semester 2 · 96114 · Master in Eco-Social Design · 6CP · EN

Based on their interests and focus, students select courses in areas Make & Intervene and Observe, Analyse & Apply, to which the course in Environmental Anthropology belongs.
The course’s aim is to integrate perspectives of ecological and environmental anthropology into perception and analysis of eco-social themes, particularly in the local alpine context. Additionally, the course will prepare students for the application of ethnographic methods and engagement with scientific texts. The critical reflection on concepts such as human – non-human relationships, ecological and social ‘transformation’ and dominant modes of production and living, and the exploitation of humans and nature, exclusion and growth compulsion going along with it, through a global comparative lens will lead to new understandings on how to combine anthropological discourses on the Anthropocene with innovative design approaches. The course leads through ethnographic examples of culturally diverse understandings of social-ecological worldviews.

Lecturers: Elisabeth Tauber

Teaching Hours: 30
Lab Hours: 0
Mandatory Attendance: highly recommended

Course Topics
Environmental anthropology has traditionally employed a longue durée perspective on human-environment interactions, spanning from Boas's cultural diffusion theory to Steward's cultural ecology. We will draw upon this foundational discourse to contextualize contemporary debates within the European Alps, examining Cole and Wolf's Hidden Frontier as a key case study. However, this class will also expand this perspective by incorporating indigenous, people of color, and female voices to critically examine the environmental and social violence inherent in colonialism, power structures, expertise hierarchies, and the relational processes that shape environmental claims. Moving beyond restrictive nature/culture binaries, we will engage with critical intersectionality frameworks to develop a political stance for reconceptualizing environments. Above all, our approach prioritizes exploration of questions over definitive answers by engaging with works that extend beyond the traditional "canon"—particularly contributions from women, people of color, indigenous authors, and other scholars whose work speaks to or bridges difference across multiple dimensions of environmental experience. Students will develop critical analytical skills for examining environmental and social issues through anthropological lenses, preparing them to engage with urgent ecological questions of our time while understanding the cultural dimensions of environmental problems and solutions. Learning Objectives: Understand key theories and methods in environmental anthropology Analyze human-environment relationships across different cultural contexts Critically examine environmental challenges from anthropological perspectives Develop ethnographic skills for studying environmental issues Apply anthropological frameworks to contemporary ecological problems

Propaedeutic courses
none

Teaching format
frontal lecture, group work, presentations in class, discussion and exercise circles

Educational objectives
Knowledge and understanding: Students of the Master in Eco-social Design course will have developed their own individual project practice and will be able to: - understanding the social, cultural, economic and environmental dimensions of projects and contexts - understand the relationships between environment, economy, society and politics Applying knowledge and understanding Students will be able to respond to the needs and requirements of a given habitat, group or situation, based on observation, listening and dialogue Making judgements Students will be able to judging independently and critically the effects of a project within an environment, group or community Communication skills Students will be able to show how the social, ecological and economic aspects of sustainability interact in their projects Learning skills Students will be able to: - work independently to learn according to different situations and in a personal way through observation, listening and dialogue - work independently to learn according to different situations and in a personal way through reading and studying

Assessment
- 4 reading minutes and preparations for discussion (is considered part of the oral exam) - 1 presentation in class 30% - 1 final paper 30% - oral exam 40% non-attending students - 4 reading minutes and preparations for discussion (is considered part of the oral exam) - 1 critical film review 30% - 1 final paper 30% - oral exam 40%

Evaluation criteria
Criteria for the evaluation of the reading minutes, presentation in class, final paper and oral exam will consider the ability to accurately apply course concepts and methods, the attempt to express original opinions and analyses, and the logical structure of exposition and argumentation.

Required readings

Bird Rose, Deborah 2004 Reports from a Wild Country. Ethics for Decolonisation. University of New South Wales Press.

Cole, John and Eric R. Wolf 1974 The Hidden Frontier: Ecology and Ethnicity in an Alpine Valley, New York: Academic Press.

Mathews, Andrew 2020 Anthropology and the Anthropocene: Criticisms, Experiments, and Collaborations in Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 49: 67-82.

Schneider, Almut 2022 Land's Constraints and Possibilities–High-Altitude Farmers in the Eastern Alps. C&AFFE Culture, Agriculture, Food and Environment. The Journal of Culture and Agriculture https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cuag.12287

Swanson, Heather Anne; Marianne Elisabeth Lien and Gro B. Ween 2018 Domestication Gone Wild Politics and Practices of Multispecies Relations. Duke University Press

Tauber, Elisabeth 2024 Walking on Alpine Grass - Grass Socialities and their Global Connections. Perspectives From The Alpine Anthropocene. Ethnos, DOI: 10.1080/00141844.2024.2362697

Todd, Zoe 2016 ‘An Indigenous Feminist’s Take on the Ontological Turn: ‘Ontology’ is just another word for colonialism’. Journal of Historical Sociology 29(1): 4-22.

Yancey Orr, J Stephen Lansing, and Michael R.Dove 2015 Environmental Anthropology: Systemic Perspectives in Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 44. 153-68.

Supplementary readings

Álvaro Fernández-Llamazares, Julia E. Fa, Dan Brockington, Eduardo S. Brondízio, Joji Cariño, Esteve Corbera, Maurizio Farhan Ferrari, Daniel Kobei, Pernilla Malmer, Guadalupe Yesenia H. Márquez, Zsolt Molnár, Helen Tugendhat & Stephen T. Garnett 2024 A baseless statistic could harm the Indigenous Peoples it is meant to support. Nature nr. 633: 32-35.

Kimmerer, Robin Wall 2014 The "Honorable Harvest": Lessons From an Indigenous Tradition of Giving Thanks. ALLcreations.org

The Kino-nda-niimi Collective 2014 The Winter We Danced. Voices from the Past, the Future, and the Idle No More Movement. ARP Books. Winnipeg.

Tsing, Anna, Jennifer Deger, Alder Keleman Saxena and Feifei Zhou 2021 Feral Atlas. The-More-Than-Human Anthropocene. Stanford University Press https://www.feralatlas.org/

Viveiros de Castro, E. (1998). Cosmological Deixis and Amerindian Perspectivism. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 469-488