1

University of Edinburgh

School of Social and Political Science

Social Anthropology

Anthropology and Environment (SCAN10066)

Course Handbook 2015–2016

Course Organiser Dr Laura Jeffery

Email: Laura.Jeffery@ed.ac.uk

Phone: +44 (0)131 6513860

Office: 5.20, Chrystal Macmillan Building, 15a George Square

Office Hours: Thursdays, 11:00–13:00

Course Secretary Ewen Miller

Email: Ewen.Miller@ed.ac.uk

Office: Undergraduate Teaching Office, G.04/05, Chrystal Macmillan

Building, 15a George Square

Class Information Lectures: Thursdays, 9:00–10:50

Lecture Hall: Lecture Theatre 4 (G.15), 7 Bristo Square

Sign up for one Seminar Group via Learn during Week 1:

Seminar Group 1: Mondays, 16:10–17:00, Seminar Room 1, CMB

Seminar Group 2, Thursdays, 15:10–16:00, G.13 Medical School doorway 4

Assignment Deadlines Mid-term short report: 12 noon, Thursday 11th February 2016

End-term long essay: 12 noon, Thursday 21st April 2016

2

Aims and Objectives This course covers a range of anthropological approaches to diverse human understandings of and interactions with their changing environments. It asks: why do human cultures engage differently with their natural environments and how do they understand processes of environmental sustainability and climate change? The course equips students to take an anthropological approach to understanding the socio-cultural, socio-political, and socio-economic implications of environmental challenges and related development, conservation, and human rights issues. Learning Outcomes On completion of this course, the student will be able to:

1. Engage with the long history of anthropological engagements with environment, from ecology and ethnobotany to climate change in the anthropocene

2. Critically examine a range of anthropological approaches to diverse human understandings of and interactions with their changing environments

3. Evaluate the contributions made by professional anthropologists as internal advisors, independent consultants, or academic critics of environmental conservation projects

4. Learn to apply insights from environmental anthropology to related development, conservation, and human rights issues

5. Bring anthropological perspectives to bear on their understandings of the socio-cultural, socio-political, and socio-economic implications of environmental challenges and debates

Teaching Methods This course entails:

A weekly two-hour lecture session divided into a lecture and participative group work

A weekly one-hour seminar for close discussion of Key Readings (sign up via Learn) Assessment All students will be assessed via two pieces of coursework: 1. Mid-term short report

Format: Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) or environmental consultancy report

Word limit: 1,000–1,500 words (not including references)

Weighting: worth 30% of the overall mark for the course

Deadline: 12 noon, Thursday 11th February EIAs and environmental consultancy reports are processes of evaluation used to identify the environmental, social, and economic impacts of projects or development, taking into account interrelated socio-economic, cultural, and human-health impacts, both beneficial and adverse. For the purposes of this assignment, the key distinction is that an EIA is prospective whereas an environmental consultancy report is retrospective. In other words,

An EIA should predict environmental, social, and economic impacts at an early stage in the planning of a proposed project, suggest how to reduce adverse impacts, design projects that are sensitive to local contexts, and present the predictions and options to decision-makers.

An environmental consultancy report should evidence the environmental, social, and economic impacts – beneficial and adverse alike – of a project or development that has already taken place.

3

Your assignment is to imagine that you have been employed by an environmental consultancy firm to assess the environmental, social, and economic impacts of a project – either proposed or already undertaken – and prepare either an EIA or an environmental consultancy report as appropriate. You can choose your own case study, but should discuss it with the Course Organiser during Office Hours and have your case study approved in writing (by email). Try to identify case studies on which sufficient information will be available, e.g. local. Some possibilities (with links) include:

What are the environmental, social, and economic implications of the demolition of the Cockenzie power station in 2015? (See e.g. Fraser MacDonald’s blog for inspiration)

What are the environmental, social, and economic implications of the Scottish Government’s designation of Nature Conservation Marine Protected Areas in Scottish territorial waters?

What would be the environmental, social, and economic implications of the Scottish Government adopting (all/some) of the demands in Pedal on Parliament’s Manifesto?

Your EIA or consultancy report should contain the following sections:

Executive summary

Project – background information

Project impacts – environmental, social, and economic

Recommendations

References cited For further guidance on the preparation of an Environmental Impact Assessment, see links below:

Scottish Natural Heritage’s Handbook on Environmental Impact Assessment (2013)

Convention on Biological Diversity’s Voluntary Guidelines on Biodiversity-Inclusive Impact Assessment (2006)

For further guidance on the preparation of an environmental consultancy report, see links below:

Equator Principle’s Guidance for Consultants on the Contents of a Report for an Independent Environmental and Social Due Diligence Review (2014)

Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management’s Guidelines for Ecological Report Writing (2015)

Reports will be assessed according to the following criteria:

Development and coherence of arguments relevant to the assignment

Use of supporting evidence from a real-life concrete case study

Demonstration of an advanced understanding and critical engagement of relevant key debates examined on the course, including reference to relevant academic articles

Degree of reflexivity and critical thinking in relation to arguments and evidence

Drawing together major arguments by way of executive summary and recommendations

Formal presentation of report: correct referencing and quoting; spelling, grammar and style; layout and visual presentation.

2. End-term long essay

Format: traditional formal academic essay

Word limit: 2,500–3,000 words (not including references)

Weighting: worth 70% of the overall mark for the course

Deadline: 12 noon, Thursday 21st April Essay questions relating to one or more of the course topics will be made available on Learn in the second half of the semester. To receive a pass mark for the essay, you will need to engage in a

4

sustained and scholarly manner with many readings from the course. If you intend to write an essay on a particular topic, you must demonstrate that you have read many, if not all, of the suggested readings for that topic, and you will need to reference these texts in a sustained and meaningful way. Your essay will need to show an understanding of the key themes, forms of analysis, and methods of anthropology of the environment. A successful essay will base its answer on the themes and debates in the anthropology of the environment, and will present a clear and creative analysis in a scholarly and anthropological manner. Essays will be assessed according to the following criteria:

Development and coherence of arguments relevant to the essay question

Use of supporting evidence, especially ethnographic examples

Demonstration of advanced understanding of and critical engagement with relevant debates examined on the course, including reference to many relevant articles on the reading list

Degree of reflexivity and critical thinking in relation to arguments and evidence

Drawing together major arguments by way of conclusion in relation to the assignment

Formal presentation of essay: correct referencing and quoting; spelling, grammar and style; layout and visual presentation.

5

Pre-Course Readings Carrier, J.G. (ed) 2004. Confronting Environments: Local Understanding in a Globalized World.

Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press. Descola, P. G. Pálsson (eds) 1996. Nature and Society: Anthropological Perspectives. London:

Routledge. Milton, K. (ed) 1993. Environmentalism: The View from Anthropology. Routledge. Milton, K. 1996. Environmentalism and Cultural Theory: The Role of Anthropology in Environmental

Discourse. Routledge. Course Readings Students must read Key Readings for discussion at the compulsory weekly seminar. Essential Readings have been selected to enable students to develop a thorough understanding of the topic, and students are encouraged to read the Essential Readings for every session. Further Readings will help students to explore the wider literature on their preferred topics; students are not expected to read all the references every week, but if you intend to write an essay on a particular topic, you must demonstrate that you have read many, if not all, of the readings suggested for that topic. Many readings are available electronically via Learn or the links in the Main Library online catalogue. If you have any difficulty getting hold of any readings, please contact the Course Organiser. Lecture Programme

Week Lecture date Session Topic

1 14/01/2016 Introduction to anthropological engagements with the environment

2 21/01/2016 Anthropological models of human–environment relations

3 28/01/2016 Native/non-native species and anti-immigration politics

4 04/02/2016 Metaphors of belonging, rootedness, and uprooting

5 11/02/2016 Healing: medicinal plants and therapeutic horticulture (Dr Niamh Moore)

NB 18/02/2016 Innovative Learning Week – no lecture

6 25/02/2016 People and parks: terrestrial and marine protected areas

7 03/03/2016 Pesticides, GMOs, and agriculture (Dr Alex Nading)

8 10/03/2016 Governance of human–environment relations (Dr John Harries)

9 17/03/2016 Paradoxes of military landscapes

10 24/03/2016 Local responses to climate change

6

Weekly Sessions and Full Reading List

Week 1. Introduction to anthropological engagements with the environment

The introductory session gives an overview of the history of anthropological engagements with the environment, from materialist ecological determinism to political ecology, cultural constructivism, phenomenology, and the anthropocene.

Key Reading

Latour, B. 2014. Anthropology at the Time of the Anthropocene – a personal view of what is to be studied. Distinguished lecture, American Association of Anthropologists, December 2014. http://www.bruno-latour.fr/sites/default/files/139-AAA-Washington.pdf

Essential Readings

Kottak, C.P. 1999. The New Ecological Anthropology. American Anthropologist 101, 1: 23-35.

Milton, K. 1997. Ecologies: anthropology, culture and the environment. International Journal of Social Science 49, 154: 477-495.

Orlove, B.S. 1980. Ecological anthropology. Annual Review of Anthropology 9: 235-273.

Orr, Y., J.S. Lansing & M.R. Dove. 2015. Environmental anthropology: systemic perspectives. Annual Review of Anthropology 44.

Rappaport, R.A. 1965. Nature, culture and ecological anthropology. In H. Shapiro (ed) Man, Culture and Society. New York: OUP.

Sayre, N.F. 2012. The Politics of the Anthropogenic. Annual Review of Anthropology 41: 57-70.

Steward, J. & D. Shimkin. 1961. Some mechanisms of sociocultural evolution. Daedalus 90, 3: 477-497.

White, L. 1943. Energy and the evolution of culture. American Anthropologist 45, 3: 335-356.

Further Readings

Agrawal, A. 2005. Environmentality: Technologies of Government and the Making of Subjects. Durham: Duke University Press.

Dove, M.R. & C. Carpenter (eds) 2008. Environmental Anthropology: A Historical Reader. Blackwell.

Haenn, N. & R. Wilk (eds) 2005. The Environment in Anthropology: A Reader in Ecology, Culture, and Sustainable Living. NYU.

Kopnina, H. & E. Shoreman-Ouimet (eds) 2011. Environmental Anthropology Today. Routledge.

Moran, E.F. 2006. People and Nature: An Introduction to Human Ecological Relations. Blackwell.

Peet, R. & M. Watts (eds). 1996. Liberation Ecologies: Environment, Development, Social Movements. London: Routledge.

7

Week 2. Anthropological models of human–environment relations

This session focuses on how humans understand and relate to their environments, examining some influential models of human–environment relations, which often distinguish between ‘indigenous’ and ‘scientific’ perspectives, and investigating whether such models make sense ethnographically.

Key Reading

Pálsson, G. 1996. Human–environmental relations: orientalism, paternalism and communalism. Pp. 63-81 in P. Descola & G. Pálsson (eds) Nature and Society: Anthropological Perspectives. London: Routledge.

Essential Readings

Bird-David, N. 1993. Tribal metaphorization of human–nature relatedness: a comparative analysis. Pp. 112-125 in K. Milton (ed) 1993. Environmentalism: The View from Anthropology. Oxford: Routledge.

Descola, P. 1996. Constructing natures: symbolic ecology and social practice. Pp. 82-102 in P. Descola & G. Pálsson (eds) Nature and Society: Anthropological Perspectives. London: Routledge.

Ingold, T. 1993. Globes and spheres: the topology of environmentalism. Pp. 31-42 in K. Milton (ed) Environmentalism: the view from anthropology. London: Routledge.

Jeffery, L. 2013. ‘We are the true guardians of the environment’: human-environment relations and debates about the future of the Chagos Archipelago. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 19, 2: 300-318.

Theodossopoulous, D. 2004. ‘Working in nature,’ ‘caring for nature’: diverse views of the environment in the context of an environmental dispute. In J.G. Carrier (ed) Confronting Environments: Local Understanding in a Globalizing World. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press.

Further Readings

Bird-David, N. 1992. Beyond ‘The Original Affluent Society: a culturalist reformulation. Current Anthropology 33, 1: 25-47.

Carrier, J.G. 2003. Mind, gaze and engagement: understanding the environment. Journal of Material Culture 8, 5: 5-23.

Ellen, R., P. Parkes & A. Bicker (eds) 2000. Indigenous Environmental Knowledge and its Transformations: Critical Anthropological Perspectives. London: Routledge.

Fairhead, J. & M. Leach. 2003. Science, Society & Power: Environmental Knowledge and Policy in West Africa and the Caribbean. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ingold, T. 1996. The optimal forager and economic man. In P. Descola & G. Pálsson (eds) Nature and Society: Anthropological Perspectives. London: Routledge.

Lee, R. 1969. What do hunters do for a living? How to make out on scarce resources. In R. Lee & I. Devore (eds) Man the Hunter. Chicago: Aldine.

Sahlins, M. 1972. The original affluent society. In Stone Age Economics. Chicago: Aldine Atherton.

Theodossopoulous, D. 2003. Troubles with Turtles: Cultural Understandings of the Environment on a

Greek Island. Oxford: Berghahn.

8

Week 3. Native/non-native species and anti-immigration politics

This session focuses on how humans relate to and attempt classify non-human species according to binaries such as native/non-native, invasive/non-invasive, and useful/weedy, revealing challenges in portraying the latter threats to biodiversity. Finally, this session interrogates the accusation that the demonisation of invasive non-native species corresponds to anti-immigration discourse.

Key Reading

Helmreich, S. 2005. How scientists think; about ‘natives’, for example: a problem of taxonomy among biologists of alien species in Hawaii. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 11: 107-128.

Essential Readings

Fairhead, J. & M. Leach. 1995. False forest history, complicit social analysis: rethinking some West African environmental narratives. World Development 23, 6: 1023-1035.

Jeffery, L. 2014. Restoration ecology in a cultural landscape: conservationist and Chagossian approaches to controlling the ‘coconut chaos’ in the Chagos Archipelago. Human Ecology 42, 6: 999-1006.

Martin, R.J. & D. Trigger. 2015. Negotiating belonging: plants, people, and indigeneity in northern Australia. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 21, 2: 276-295.

Pocock, C. 2005. ‘Blue lagoons and coconut palms’: the creation of a tropical idyll in Australia. Australian Journal of Anthropology 16, 3: 335-349.

Trigger, D.S. 2008. Indigeneity, ferality, and what ‘belongs’ in the Australian bush: Aboriginal responses to ‘introduced’ animals and plants in a settler-descendant society. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Association 14: 628-646.

Further Readings

Comaroff, J. & J.L Comaroff. 2001. Naturing the nation: aliens, apocalypse and the postcolonial state. Journal of Southern African Studies 27, 3: 627-651.

Ives, S, 2014. Uprooting “indigeneity” in South Africa’s Western Cape: The plant that moves. American Anthropologist 116, 2: 310-323.

Ives, S. 2014. Farming the South African “Bush”: Ecologies of belonging and exclusion in rooibos tea. American Ethnologist 41, 4: 698-713.

Neely, A.H. 2010. ‘Blame it on the weeds’: politics, poverty, and ecology in the New South Africa. Journal of Southern African Studies 36, 4: 869-887.

9

Week 4. Plant metaphors of belonging, rootedness, and uprooting

This session probes further into relationships between humans and territories through plant metaphors, which are particularly – but not exclusively – relevant in the context of geographical uprooting: migrants and others alike use rootedness to mark their connections to their (home)lands.

Key Reading

Malkki, L. 1992. National Geographic: the rooting of peoples and the territorialisation of national identity among scholars and refugees. Cultural Anthropology 7, 1: 24-44.

Essential Readings

Bardenstein, C. 1998. Threads of memory in discourses of rootedness: of trees, oranges and prickly-pear cactus in Palestine/Israel. Edebiyat: A Journal of Middle Eastern Literatures 8, 1: 1-36.

Braverman, I. 2009. Uprooting Identities: The Regulation of Olive Trees in the Occupied West Bank. PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 32, 2: 237-264.

Bloch, M. 1998. Why trees, too, are good to think with: towards an anthropology of the meaning of life. Pp.39- 55 in L. Rival (ed) The Social Life of Trees: Anthropological Perspectives on Tree Symbolism. Oxford: Berg.

Giambelli, R.A. 1998. The coconut, the body and the human being. Metaphors of life and growth in Nusa Penida and Bali. Pp.133-157 in L. Rival (ed) The Social Life of Trees: Anthropological Perspectives on Tree Symbolism. Oxford: Berg.

Jeffery, L. & R. Rotter. 2016. Sustenance, nourishment, and cultivation: plants as living cultural heritage for dispersed Chagossians in Mauritius, Seychelles, and the UK. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 22, 2.

Jepson, A. 2006. Gardens and the nature of rootedness in Cyprus. In G. Welz, N. Peristiani & Y. Papadakis (eds) Divided Cyprus: Modernity, History and an Island in Conflict. Bloomington Indiana University Press.

Further Readings

Chatty, D. & M. Colchester (eds). 2002. Conservation and Mobile Indigenous Peoples. Oxford: Berghahn.

Clifford, J. 1997. Routes: Travel And Translation in the Late Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. (Chapter 10 ‘Diasporas’)

Godkin, M.A. 1980. Identity and place: clinical applications based on notions of rootedness and uprootedness. In A. Buttimer & D. Deamon (eds) The Human Experience of Space and Place. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Ingold, T. 2000. Making things, growing plants, raising animals and bringing up children. Pp. 77-88 in T. Ingold, The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill. London: Routledge.

Verhelst, T. 1990. No Life Without Roots: Culture and Development. London: Zed.

10

Week 5. Healing: medicinal plants and therapeutic horticulture

This session continues to develop a focus on growing and healing by exploring the widespread use of medicinal plants and the development of horticultural therapy, which relies on correlations between the great outdoors, gardening, and physical and emotional wellbeing.

Key Reading

McClintock, N. 2012. Radical, Reformist, and Garden-Variety Neoliberal: Coming to Terms with Urban Agriculture’s Contradictions. Local Environment 19, 2: 147–171.

Essential Readings

Bhatti, M. 2006. ‘When I’m in the garden I can create my own paradise’: homes and gardens in later life. Sociological Review 54, 2: 318-341.

Crouch, D. 1989. The allotment, landscape and locality: ways of seeing landscape and culture. Area 21, 3: 261-267.

Crouch, D. & C. Ward. 1988. The Allotment: Its Landscape and Culture. London: Faber & Faber.

Degnen, C. 2009. On vegetable love: gardening, plants, and people in the north of England. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 15: 151-167.

DeSilvey, C., 2003. Cultivated histories in a Scottish allotment garden. Cultural Geographies 10: 442–468.

Jepson, A. 2014. Gardening and well-being: a view from the ground. In E. Hallam & T. Ingold (eds) Making and Growing: Anthropological Studies of Organisms and Artefacts. Farnham: Ashgate.

Moore, N., A. Church, J. Gabb, C. Holmes, A. Lee & N. Ravenscroft. 2014. Growing Intimate PrivatePublics: Everyday utopia in the naturecultures of a young lesbian and bisexual women’s allotment. Feminist Theory 15, 3: 327-343.

Further Readings

Hsu, E. & S. Harris (eds) 2010. Plants, Health and Healing: On the Interface of Ethnobotany and Medical Anthropology. Oxford: Berghahn.

Kaplan, S. 1995. The restorative benefits of nature: toward an integrative framework. Journal of Environmental Psychology 15, 2: 169-182.

Lovell, R. et al., 2014. What are the health and well-being impacts of community gardening for adults and children: a mixed method systematic review protocol. Environmental Evidence 3:20

Neuberger, K.R. 1995. Pedagogics and horticultural therapy: the favourite task of Mr Huber, digging up potatoes. Acta Horticulturae 391: 241-251.

Parr, H. 2007. Mental health, nature work, and social inclusion. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 25, 3: 537-561.

Parsons, R. 1991. The potential influences of environmental perception on human health. Journal of Environmental Psychology 11: 1-23.

Tilley, C. 2006. The sensory dimensions of gardening. Senses and Society 1, 3: 311-30.

11

Week 6. People and parks: terrestrial and marine protected areas

This session looks at the tensions between biodiversity conservation and political ecology through the history of Protected Areas: from ‘fortress conservation’ to Integrated Conservation and Development Projects (ICMPs), Community-Based Conservation (CBC), and Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM)… and back again?

Key Reading

West, P., J. Igoe & D. Brockington. 2006. Parks and peoples: the social impact of Protected Areas. Annual Review of Anthropology 35: 251-277.

Essential Readings

Adams, W.M. & J. Hutton. 2007. People, parks and poverty: political ecology and biodiversity conservation. Conservation and Society 5, 2: 147-183.

Agrawal, A. & K. Redford. 2009. Conservation and displacement: an overview. Conservation and Society 7, 1: 1-10.

Aswani, S. & M. Lauer. 2006. Incorporating fishers’ local knowledge and behaviour into geographical information systems (GIS) for designing marine protected areas in Oceania. Human Organization 65, 1: 80-101.

Dressler, W., B.B. Scher, M. Schoon, D. Brockington, T. Hayes, C.A. Kull, J. McCarthy & K. Shrestha. 2010. From hope to crisis and back again? A critical history of the global CBNRM narrative. Environmental Conservation 37, 1: 251-277.

Schmidt-Soltau, K. & D. Brockington. 2007. Protected Areas and resettlement: what scope for voluntary relocation? World Development 35, 12: 2182-2202.

Further Readings

Brockington, D. 2002. Fortress Conservation: The Preservation of the Mkomazi Game Reserve, Tanzania. Oxford: James Currey.

Fabinyi, M. 2012. Fishing for Fairness: Poverty, Morality and Marine Resource Regulation in the Philippines. ANU E Press.

Igoe, J. 2004. Conservation and Globalization: A Study of National Parks and Indigenous Communities from East Africa to South Dakota. Wandsworth.

Lowe, C. 2006. Wild Profusion: Biodiversity Conservation in an Indonesian Archipelago. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Heatherington, T. 2010. Wild Sardinia: Indigeneity and the Global Dreamtimes of Environmentalism. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

Walley, C.J. 2004. Rough Waters: Nature and Development in an East African Marine Park. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

West, P. 2006. Conservation is Our Government Now: The Politics of Ecology in Papua New Guinea. Durham: Duke University Press.

12

Week 7. Organic farming, GMOs, and pesticides

This session introduces three ways of thinking about agriculture: one is an evolutionary, political-economic view; the second is a largely cultural and ecological view; the third focuses on how social movements deal with the effects (both acute and long-term) of new agricultural technologies.

Key Reading

Widger, Tom. 2015. Suicide and the 'Poison Complex': Toxic Relationalities, Child Development, and the Sri Lankan Self-Harm Epidemic. Medical Anthropology 34, 6:501-516.

Essential Readings

Bray, F. 2002. Are GMOs Good for Us? What Anthropologists Can Contribute to the Debate. Revista Anthropologica 6: 43-56.

Lansing, J. S. 1987. Balinese Water Temples and the Management of Irrigation. American Anthropologist 89: 326-341.

Helmreich, S. 1999. Digitizing ‘Development:’ Balinese Water Temples, Complexity, and the Politics of Simulation. Critique of Anthropology 19, 3: 249-265. See also Lansing’s Reply in Critique of Anthropology 20, 3: 337-46; Helmreich’s Rejoinder in Critique of Anthropology 20, 3: 319-327.

Further Readings

Buhs, J. 2002. The Fire Ant Wars: Nature and Science in the Pesticide Controversies of the Late Twentieth Century. Isis 93: 377-400.

Fortun, K. and Fortun, M. 2005. Scientific Imaginaries and Ethical Plateaus in Contemporary U.S. Toxicology. American Anthropologist 107, 1: 43-54.

Harris, M. 1972. How Green the Revolution. Journal of Contemporary Asia 2, 4: 446-448.

Harrison, J. 2011. Pesticide Drift and the Pursuit of Environmental Justice. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Heller, C. 2007. Techne versus Technoscience: Divergent (and Ambiguous) Notions of Food Quality in the French Debate over GM Crops. American Anthropologist 109, 4: 603-615.

Saxton, D. 2015. Strawberry Fields as Extreme Environments: The Ecobiopolitics of Farmworker Health. Medical Anthropology 34, 2: 166-183.

Stone, G.D. 2002. Both Sides Now: Fallacies in the Genetic Modification Wars, Implications for Developing Countries, and Anthropological Perspectives. Current Anthropology 43: 611-630.

Stone, G.D. 2007. Agricultural Deskilling and the Spread of Genetically Modified Cotton in Warangal. Current Anthropology 48, 1: 67-103.

Stone, G.D. 2010. The Anthropology of Genetically Modified Crops. Annual Review of Anthropology 39: 381-400.

Widger, T. 2015. Pesticides and Global Health: ‘Ambivalent Objects’ in Anthropological Perspective. Somatosphere. http://somatosphere.net/?p=8770

13

Week 8. Governance of human–environment relations

The governance of human–environment relations may be informed by the recognition that there are multiple perspectives on how best to ‘manage’ the environment, perspectives that are shaped not only by economic interests but also profound differences in how people think, feel, and engage with the world around them. This session considers how, if at all, ‘the environment’ may be considered as anything other than a ‘resource’ to be managed.

Key Reading

Cadigan S. (1999) The moral economy of the commons: ecology and equity in the Newfoundland cod fishery, 1815-1855. Labour/Le Travail 43: 9-42.

Essential Readings

Feeny, David, et al. 1990. The tragedy of the commons: twenty-two years later. Human Ecology 18, 1: 1-19.

Hardin G. 1968. The tragedy of the commons. Science 162, 13: 1243-1248.

Plumwood, V. (2002) Environmental Culture. The Ecological Crisis of Reason. Abingdon: Routledge. (Chapter 1 The ecological crisis of reason)

Steel D.H., Anderson R. & Green J.M. 1992. The managed commercial annihilation of northern cod, Newfoundland Studies 8, 1: 34-67.

Further Readings

Kalland, A. 2000. Indigenous knowledge: prospects and limitations. Pp.319-336 in R. Ellen, P. Parkes & A. Bicker (eds) Indigenous environmental knowledge and its transformations: critical anthropological perspectives. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic.

McCay, B.J. 1978. Systems ecology, people ecology, and the anthropology of fishing communities. Human Ecology 6, 4: 397-422.

Murray, G. et al. 2008. Mapping cod: fisheries science, fish harvesters’ ecological knowledge and cod migrations in the northern Gulf of St. Lawrence. Human Ecology 36, 4: 581-598.

Palmer, C.T. & R.L. Wadley. 2010. Does Environmental Talk Equal Environmental Knowledge? An Example from Newfoundland. Case Studies in Human Ecology (second edition): 89-100.

Helgason, A. & G. Pálsson. 1997. Contested commodities: the moral landscape of modernist regimes. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 3, 3: 451-471.

Pitcher, T.J. & M.E. Lam. 2010. Fishful thinking: rhetoric, reality, and the sea before us. Ecology and Society 15, 2: 12.

14

Week 9. Paradoxes of military landscapes

This session examines the paradoxes of military landscapes, which evoke images of desolate wastelands of environmental degradation, in contrast to military environmental discourses that assert that their heightened seclusion and/or seclusion enable environmental recovery and/or assist conservation.

Key Reading

Woodward, R. 2001. Khaki conservation: an examination of military environmentalist discourses in the British Army. Journal of Rural Studies 17: 201-217.

Essential Readings

Coates, P., T. Cole, M. Dudley & C. Pearson. 2011. Defending nation, defending nature? Militarized landscapes and military environmentalism in Britain, France, and the United States. Environmental History 16: 456-491.

Davis, J.S. 2007. Scenes of Eden: conservation and pristine devastation on Bikini Atoll. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 25: 213-235.

Davis, J.S., J.S. Hayes-Conroy & V.M. Jones. 2007. Military pollution and natural purity: seeing nature and knowing contamination in Vieques, Puerto Rico. GeoJournal 69: 165-179.

Havlick, D. 2007. Logics of change for military-to-wildlife conversions in the United States. GeoJournal 69: 151-164.

Havlick, D. 2011. Disarming nature: converting military lands to wildlife refuges. Geographical Review 101: 183-200.

McCaffrey, K.T. 2009. Environmental struggle after the Cold War: new forms of resistance to the U.S. military in Vieques, Puerto Rico. Pp.218-242 in C. Lutz (ed) The Bases of Empire: The Global Struggle against U.S. Military Posts. London: Pluto

Taylor, M.J. 2007. Militarism and the environment in Guatemala. GeoJournal 69: 181-198.

Further Readings

Harris, P. Militarism in Environmental Disguise: The Greenwashing of an Overseas Military Base. International Political Sociology

Harris, P. 2014. Environmental Protection as International Security: Conserving the Pentagon's Island Bases. International Journal 69, 3

MacDonald, F. 2006. The last outpost of Empire: Rockall and the Cold War. Journal of Historical Geography 32: 627-647.

Sand, P.H. 2009. Diego Garcia: British–American Legal Black Hole in the Indian Ocean? Journal of Environmental Law 21, 1: 113-137.

Sand, P.H. 2010. The Chagos Archipelago: footprint of empire, or world heritage? Environmental Policy and Law 40: 232-46.

Woodward, R. 2005. From military geographies to militarism’s geographies: disciplinary engagements with the geographies of militarism and military activities. Progress in Human Geography 29: 718-740.

15

Week 10. Local responses to climate change

This session examines a range of social responses to climate change and climate change science: narratives of risk and danger, of victimhood and marginalisation, of religious punishment, of hopelessness and inaction, and of hope and responsibility to act.

Key Reading

Crate, S.A. 2011. Climate and culture: anthropology in the era of contemporary climate change. Annual Review of Anthropology 40: 175-194.

Essential Readings

Doolittle, A.A. 2010. The politics of indigeneity: indigenous strategies for inclusion in climate change negotiations. Conservation and Society 8, 4: 286-291.

Farbotko, C. & H. Lazarus. 2012. The first climate refugees? Contesting global narratives of climate change in Tuvalu. Global Environmental Change 22: 382-390.

Kelman, I. 2010. Hearing local voices from Small Island Developing States for climate change. Local Environment 15, 7: 605-619.

Kelman, I. 2011. Dealing with climate change on Small Island Developing States. Practical Anthropology 31, 1: 28-32.

Pokrant, B. & L. Stocker. 2011. Anthropology, climate change and coastal planning. Pp. 179-194 in H. Kopnina & E. Shoreman-Ouimet (eds) 2011. Environmental Anthropology Today. London: Routledge.

Rudiak-Gould, P. 2011. Climate change and anthropology. Anthropology Today 27, 2: 9-12.

Further Readings

Baer, H & M. Singer. 2014. The Anthropology of Climate Change. London: Routledge.

Crate, S.A. & M. Nuttall (eds). 2009. Anthropology and Climate Change: From Encounters to Actions. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.

Diemberger, H. et al. 2012. Communicating climate knowledge: proxies, processes, politics. Current Anthropology 53, 2: 226-244.

Robertson, M.L.B. & C. Rubow. 2014. Engaged world-making: movements of sand, sea, and people at two Pacific islands. Pp.63-78 in K. Hastrup (ed) Anthropology and Nature. New York: Routledge.

Rudiak-Gould, P. 2013. Climate Change and Tradition in a Small Island State: The Rising Tide. New York: Routledge.

Strauss, S. & B. Orlove (eds) 2003. Weather, Climate, Culture. Oxford: Berg.

16

Appendix 1: Submission and Assessment Information

Word Count Penalties

Essay that exceed the word limit stated in the essay instructions (excluding bibliography) will be penalised using the Ordinary level criterion of 1 mark for every 20 words over length.

You will not be penalised for submitting work below the word limit. However, you should note that shorter essays are unlikely to achieve the required depth and that this will be reflected in your mark.

ELMA: Submission and Return of Coursework

Coursework is submitted online using our electronic submission system, ELMA. You will not be required to submit a paper copy of your work.

Marked coursework, grades and feedback will be returned to you via ELMA. You will not receive a paper copy of your marked course work or feedback.

For information, help and advice on submitting coursework and accessing feedback, please see the ELMA wiki at https://www.wiki.ed.ac.uk/display/SPSITWiki/ELMA. Further detailed guidance on the essay deadline and a link to the wiki and submission page will be available on the course Learn page. The wiki is the primary source of information on how to submit your work correctly and provides advice on approved file formats, uploading cover sheets and how to name your files correctly.

When you submit your work electronically, you will be asked to tick a box confirming that your work complies with university regulations on plagiarism. This confirms that the work you have submitted is your own.

We undertake to return all coursework within 15 working days of submission. This time is needed for marking, moderation, second marking and input of results. If there are any unanticipated delays, it is the course organiser’s responsibility to inform you of the reasons.

All our coursework is assessed anonymously to ensure fairness: to facilitate this process put your Examination number (on your student card), not your name or student number, on your coursework or cover sheet.

Important note to students

17

To ensure your course work is submitted successfully, students should aim to upload their submissions at least 1 hour before the deadline.

Students are responsible for ensuring they have sufficient internet access and connection to submit their course work electronically. Technical difficulties and poor internet connection are not acceptable reasons for submitting work late.

You should monitor your university student email account in the 24 hours following the deadline for submitting your work. If there are any problems with your submission the course secretary will email you at this stage.

Return of Feedback

Feedback for mid-term short case study will be returned online via ELMA on 3rd March.

Feedback for end-term long case study will be returned online via ELMA on 12th May.

All our coursework is assessed anonymously to ensure fairness: to facilitate this process put your Examination number (on your student card), not your name or student number, on your coursework or cover sheet.

The Operation of Lateness Penalties

Unlike in Years 1 and 2, NO EXTENSIONS ARE GRANTED WITH RESPECT TO THE SUBMISSION DEADLINES FOR ANY ASSESSED WORK At HONOURS LEVEL.

Managing deadlines is a basic life-skill that you are expected to have acquired by the time you reach Honours. Timely submission of all assessed items (coursework, essays, project reports, etc.) is a vitally important responsibility at this stage in your university career. Unexcused lateness can put at risk your prospects of proceeding to Senior Honours and can damage your final degree grade.

If you miss the submission deadline for any piece of assessed work 5 marks will be deducted for each calendar day that work is late, up to a maximum of five calendar days (25 marks). Thereafter, a mark of zero will be recorded. There is no grace period for lateness and penalties begin to apply immediately following the deadline. For example, if the deadline is Tuesday at 12 noon, work submitted on Tuesday at any time after 12 noon will be marked as one day late, work submitted at any time after 12 noon on Wednesday will be marked as two days late, and so on.

Failure to submit an item of assessed work will result in a mark of zero, with potentially very serious consequences for your overall degree class, or no degree at all. It is therefore always in your interest to submit work, even if very late.

18

Please be aware that all work submitted is returned to students with a provisional mark and without applicable penalties in the first instance. The mark you receive on ELMA is therefore subject to change following the consideration of the Lateness Penalty Waiver Panel (please see below for further information) and the Board of Examiners.

How to Submit a Lateness Penalty Waiver Form

If there are extenuating circumstances beyond your control which make it essential for you to submit work after the deadline you must fill in a ‘Lateness Penalty Waiver’ (LPW) form to state the reason for your lateness. This is a request for any applicable penalties to be removed and will be considered by the Lateness Penalty Waiver Panel.

Before submitting an LPW, please consider carefully whether your circumstances are (or were) significant enough to justify the lateness. Such circumstances should be serious and exceptional (e.g. not a common cold or a heavy workload). Computer failures are not regarded as justifiable reason for late submission. You are expected to regularly back-up your work and allow sufficient time for uploading it to ELMA.

You should submit the LPW form and supply an expected date of submission as soon as you are able to do so, and preferably before the deadline. Depending on the circumstances, supporting documentation may be required, so please be prepared to provide this where possible.

LPW forms can be found in a folder outside your SSO’s office, on online at:

http://www.sps.ed.ac.uk/undergrad/on_course_students/assessment_and_regulations/coursework_requirements/coursework_requirements_honours

Forms should be returned by email or, if possible, in person to your SSO. They will sign the form to indicate receipt and will be able to advise you if you would like further guidance or support.

Please Note: Signing the LPW form by either your SSO or Personal Tutor only indicates acknowledgment of the request, not the waiving of lateness penalties. Final decisions on all marks rest with Examination Boards.

There is a dedicated SSO for students in each subject area in SPS. To find out who your SSO is, and how to contact them, please find your home subject area on the table below:

19

Subject Area Name of SSO Email Phone Office

Politics Alex Solomon Alex.Solomon@ed.ac.uk 0131 650 4253

Room 1.05, Chrystal MacMillan Building

International Relations

Rebecca Shade Rebecca.Shade@ed.ac.uk 0131 651 3896

Room 1.05, Chrystal MacMillan Building

Social Anthropology

Vanessa Feldberg Vanessa.Feldberg@ed.ac.uk 0131 650 3933

Room 1.04, Chrystal MacMillan Building

Social Policy Louise Angus L.Angus@ed.ac.uk 0131 650 3923

Room 1.08, Chrystal MacMillan Building

Social Work Jane Marshall Jane.Marshall@ed.ac.uk 0131 650 3912

Room 1.07, Chrystal MacMillan Building

Sociology Karen Dargo Karen.Dargo@ed.ac.uk 0131 651 1306

Room 1.03, Chrystal MacMillan Building

Sustainable Development

Sue Renton Sue.Renton@ed.ac.uk 0131 650 6958

Room 1.09, Chrystal MacMillan Building

If you are a student from another School, you should submit your LPW to the SSO for the subject area of the course, Vanessa Feldberg.

Plagiarism Guidance for Students

Avoiding Plagiarism

Material you submit for assessment, such as your essays, must be your own work. You can, and should, draw upon published work, ideas from lectures and class discussions, and (if appropriate) even upon discussions with other students, but you must always make clear that you are doing so. Passing off anyone else’s work (including another student’s work or material from the Web or a published author) as your own is plagiarism and will be punished severely. When you upload your work to ELMA you will be asked to check a box to confirm the work is your own. All submissions will be run through ‘Turnitin’, our plagiarism detection software. Turnitin compares every essay against a

20

constantly-updated database, which highlights all plagiarised work. Assessed work that contains plagiarised material will be awarded a mark of zero, and serious cases of plagiarism will also be reported to the College Academic Misconduct officer. In either case, the actions taken will be noted permanently on the student's record. For further details on plagiarism see the Academic Services’ website:

http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/academic-services/students/undergraduate/discipline/plagiarism

Data Protection Guidance for Students

In most circumstances, students are responsible for ensuring that their work with information about living, identifiable individuals complies with the requirements of the Data Protection Act. The document, Personal Data Processed by Students, provides an explanation of why this is the case. It can be found, with advice on data protection compliance and ethical best practice in the handling of information about living, identifiable individuals, on the Records Management section of the University website at:

http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/records-management-section/data-protection/guidance-policies/dpforstudents

21

Appendix 2: General Information

Students with Disabilities The School welcomes disabled students with disabilities (including those with specific learning difficulties such as dyslexia) and is working to make all its courses as accessible as possible. If you have a disability special needs which means that you may require adjustments to be made to ensure access to lectures, seminars or exams, or any other aspect of your studies, you can discuss these with your Student Support Officer or Personal Tutor who will advise on the appropriate procedures. You can also contact the Student Disability Service, based on the University of Edinburgh, Third Floor, Main Library, You can find their details as well as information on all of the support they can offer at: http://www.ed.ac.uk/student-disability-service

Learning Resources for Undergraduates

The Study Development Team at the Institute for Academic Development (IAD) provides resources and workshops aimed at helping all students to enhance their learning skills and develop effective study techniques. Resources and workshops cover a range of topics, such as managing your own learning, reading, note making, essay and report writing, exam preparation and exam techniques.

The study development resources are housed on ‘LearnBetter’ (undergraduate), part of Learn, the University's virtual learning environment. Follow the link from the IAD Study Development web page to enrol: www.ed.ac.uk/iad/undergraduates

Workshops are interactive: they will give you the chance to take part in activities, have discussions, exchange strategies, share ideas and ask questions. They are 90 minutes long and held on Wednesday afternoons at 1.30pm or 3.30pm. The schedule is available from the IAD Undergraduate web page (see above).

Workshops are open to all undergraduates but you need to book in advance, using the MyEd booking system. Each workshop opens for booking 2 weeks before the date of the workshop itself. If you book and then cannot attend, please cancel in advance through MyEd so that another student can have your place. (To be fair to all students, anyone who persistently books on workshops and fails to attend may be barred from signing up for future events).

Study Development Advisors are also available for an individual consultation if you have specific questions about your own approach to studying, working more effectively, strategies for improving your learning and your academic work. Please note, however, that Study Development Advisors are not subject specialists so they cannot comment on the content of your work. They also do not check or proof read students' work.

To make an appointment with a Study Development Advisor, email iad.study@ed.ac.uk

(For support with English Language, you should contact the English Language Teaching Centre).

22

Discussing Sensitive Topics

The discipline of Social Anthropology addresses a number of topics that some might find sensitive or, in some cases, distressing. You should read this Course Guide carefully and if there are any topics that you may feel distressed by you should seek advice from the course convenor and/or your Personal Tutor.

For more general issues you may consider seeking the advice of the Student Counselling Service,

http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/student-counselling

Guide to Using LEARN for Online Seminar Sign-Up

The following is a guide to using LEARN to sign up for your seminar. If you have any problems using

the LEARN sign up, please contact the course secretary by email (Ewen.Miller@ed.ac.uk).

Seminar sign up will open on Monday, 11 January, after the first lecture has taken place, and will close

at 12 noon on the Friday of Week 1 (15 January).

Step 1 – Accessing LEARN course pages

Access to LEARN is through the MyEd Portal. You will have been given a log-in and password during

Freshers’ Week. Once you are logged into MyEd, you should see a tab called ‘Courses’ which will list

the active LEARN pages for your courses under ‘myLEARN’.

Step 2 – Welcome to LEARN

Once you have clicked on the relevant course from the list, you will see the Course Content page.

There will be icons for the different resources available, including one called ‘Seminar Sign Up’. Please

take note of any instructions there.

Step 3 – Signing up for your seminar

Clicking on Seminar Sign Up will take you to the sign up page where all the available seminar groups

are listed along with the running time and location.

Once you have selected the group you would like to attend, click on the ‘Sign up’ button. A

confirmation screen will display.

IMPORTANT: If you change your mind after having chosen a seminar you cannot go back and change

it and you will need to email the course secretary. Reassignments once seminars are full or after

the sign-up period has closed will only be made in exceptional circumstances.

23

Seminars have restricted numbers and it is important to sign up as soon as possible. The seminar

sign up will only be available until 12 noon on the Friday of Week 1 (15 January) so that everyone is

registered to a group ahead of seminars commencing in Week 2. If you have not yet signed up for

a seminar by this time you will be automatically assigned to a group which you will be expected to

attend.

Exam Boards and the External Examiner

The grades on this course, as well as the other courses in Social Anthropology, will be reviewed by an external examiner, Dr Adam Reed, of the University of St. Andrews, and confirmed at an exam board which usually convenes in late May or early June. All marks should be considered provisional until they are confirmed by the exam board.