Environmental Qualitative Methods

(4 Credits)

This course explores the research methodology of ethnography, as it applies to Environmental Studies. The course focuses on the work from the field Environmental Anthropology. By reading finished ethnographies together, they will consider the practice of ethnography “backwards,” in a manner that allows for learning from the methodological design, and ultimate path, each author took to arrive at the analysis presented in each book. The goal is to acquaint with the ways that qualitative data can and do function as “data,” and the ways in which they can enrich quantitative data forms for a more robust understanding of environmental change.