CONSERVATION, INDIGENEITY, DISPLACEMENT

Credit Hours: 3 · Undergraduate Upper-Level

This course will critically examine various conservation policies and programs in different parts of the globe and explore the relationship between conservation and capitalism, desertification and biodiversity, environmental degradation and environmental racism, as well as indigenous land displacement and fortress conservation. By studying an array of transcontinental case studies, we will deepen our understanding of how individuals and communities alike mobilize collective, creative actions to protect and conserve local environments in the face of daunting ecological oppression. We will moreover collectively explore how conservation has been used as an oppressive tool to further advance capitalist and statist policies and agendas in a global context. In doing so, this course will draw our attention to the contested, varied, unequal, and changing political and capitalist agendas and contexts in which conservation programs and policies are often conceived and implemented. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: ANTH 557 . Recommended Prerequisite(s): ANTH 201