everything.study
R SOC 365

Sociology of Environment and Development

3 units

Fall 2026

Topics

  • Gain an understanding of key economic and sociological approaches to environment and development
  • Develop a critical and historical understanding of sustainable development discourse and its major critiques
  • Identify how poverty, wealth, geography, race, gender, colonialism, and political economy shape environmental outcomes
  • Apply sociological theories such as ecological modernization, treadmill of production, political ecology, and environmental justice to concrete case studies
  • Develop research, synthesis, and writing skills through a staged final paper process

Readings

  • Gunter Frank, A. (1966) The Development of Underdevelopment Monthly Review Press. 5
    recommended
  • Amin, S. (1976). Unequal development. New York: Monthly Review Press
    recommended
  • Mol, Arthur P. J., and Frederick H. Buttel, eds. 2002. The Environmental State Under Pressure. Topic: Ecological Modernization – Week 9
    recommended
  • recommended
  • Ewing, Jeffrey A. 2017. “Hollow Ecology: Ecological Modernization Theory and the Death of Nature.” Journal of World-Systems Research 23(1): 126–155
    recommended
  • Buttel, F. H. (2000). Ecological modernization as social theory. Geoforum, 31(1), 57-65
    recommended
  • Carolan, Michael S. 2004. “Ecological Modernization Theory: What About Consumption?” Society & Natural
    recommended
  • Crutzen, P. J. (2006). The “anthropocene”. In Earth system science in the anthropocene (pp. 13-18). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
    unspecified
  • Malm, A., & Hornborg, A. (2014). The geology of mankind? A critique of the Anthropocene narrative. The anthropocene review, 1(1), 62-69
    unspecified
  • Moore, J. W. (Ed.). (2016). Anthropocene or capitalocene?: Nature, history, and the crisis of capitalism. PM press
    recommended
  • John Bellamy Foster “Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature” New York University Press. (2000) John Bellamy Foster “The vulnerable planet: A short economic history of the environment” (1999) New York University Press Topic: Global Environmental Justice and Research Paper support – Week 13
    recommended
  • Dong, Z., Wang, B., & Shao, C. (2025). The historical evolution and modernization path of China’s ecological and environmental governance. Energy & Environmental Sustainability, 1(2), 100014
    recommended
  • Ajl, Max. 2023. “Theories of Political Ecology: Monopoly Capital Against People and the Planet.” Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy 12(1): 12–50
    recommended
  • recommended
  • Sachs, J. (2022). Sustainable development report 2022. Cambridge University Press
    recommended
Fall 2019

Topics

  • To employ a Sociological perspective to the study of development issues
  • To provide students with an opportunity to develop critical thinking and writing skills
  • To provide an improved understanding of global development issues and development studies

Readings

  • Easterly, W., 2006. Ch 1, Planners versus Searchers, in: The White Man’s Burden; Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done so Much Ill and Do Little Good. Penguin Books, London, pp. 3–36
    unspecified
  • Escobar, A., 2012. Ch 2, The problematization of poverty: the tale of three worlds and development, in: Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World. Princeton University Press, Princeton, pp. 21–54
    unspecified
  • Gupta, J., Hordijk, M., Vegelin, C., 2019. Ch 2 An Inclusive Development Perspective on Development Studies in the Anthropocene, in: Baud, I., Basile, E., Kontinen, T., von
    unspecified
  • Itter, S. (Eds.), Building Development Studies for the New Millennium. Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp. 25–50
    unspecified
  • Ostrom, E., 1990. Analyzing long-enduring, self organized,and self-govern CPRs, in: Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 58–101
    unspecified
  • unspecified
  • Salomons, G., Parkins, J.R., 2018. The economic and political context of climate policy in Alberta, in: Public Deliberation on Climate Change: Lessons from Alberta Climate Dialogue. Athabasca University Press, Edmonton, pp. 83–107. Schaffartzik, A., Mayer, A., Gingrich, S., Eisenmenger, N., Loy, C., Krausmann, F., 2014. The global metabolic transition: Regional patterns and trends of global material flows, 1950–2010. Glob. Environ. Chang. 26, 87–97
    unspecified
  • Thoreau, H. D. 1861. Walking. The Floating Press, Aukland. World Ocean Review (WOR) 4, Maribus gGmbH, Hamburg. 2015 https:// worldoceanreview.com/en/wor-4/how-the-sea-serves-us/
    unspecified
Sources