Amazon/Andes:Viol,Divers,Envir

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Amazon & Andes: Violence, Diversity, and Environment Professor Liliana Duica-Amaya Informality and illegality have become cliches to describe and categorize social and political interactions in the Amazon and Andean regions. It is easier depicting these spaces as ungoverned than understanding their social, cultural, and territorial complexity. The purpose of this class is to navigate the human and environmental diversity of these regions visiting notions such as gunpoint conservation, bastard justices, state margins, and community-led bodies as crucial concepts to understand the interconnection among diversity, environment, and governance. This class will provide a critical assessment on how concepts such as state, governance, or sovereignty are constructed and disputed in regions in which multiple political and social allegiances overlap. Students will grasp the wide gap between formal narratives and on-the-ground reality, achieving a more factual and comprehensive understanding of the complexity of these two regions.