Postgraduate Course: Understanding Environment and Development (PGGE11187)
Course Outline
| School | School of Geosciences |
College | College of Science and Engineering |
| Course type | Standard |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Credits | 20 |
| Home subject area | Postgraduate Courses (School of GeoSciences) |
Other subject area | Environmental Courses |
| Course website |
None |
Taught in Gaelic? | No |
| Course description | This course expands from the foundations in development theory introduced in the first semester to think explicitly about the relationship between environment and development. A previous course in development theory is strongly recommended, although not a required prerequisite. Students entering the course without a background in development, however, will be expected to fill in their knowledge gaps independently.
We begin the course by thinking about early approaches to environment and development which saw environment as a terrain that needed to be protected from human populations. We critically examine this mode of environmental management in order to understand how social politics are always bound up in environmental management. We then move on to explore some of the ¿win-win¿ solutions to environment and development goals that were first proposed in the 1980s. While often framed in the language of ¿trade-offs¿ in this course, we explore how environment becomes enrolled in contestations over what form development ought to take and how environmental management should (or should not) support that. We explore how environmental concerns are implicitly, even if not explicitly, are critical for state and international development efforts.
The majority of the course is devoted to exploring different approaches to environment and development, including a discussion of climate change and adaptation, and the impact of violence and conflict on environment-development agendas. We begin with community-based natural resource management, one of the most influential and popular of the ¿win-win¿ solutions for environmental outcomes that carries with it attention to social concerns. These approaches are rapidly becoming one of the backbones of climate adaptation programmes in many developing contexts, but the large scale and global concerns attached to climate change have been eroding some of the focus on ¿community¿ in participatory development. We will explore the range of issues around adaptation over a two week period.
From climate change, we go back into development theory to explore more fully many of the issues this key ¿global challenge¿ raises. We examine the new trends in property rights land dispossession, ¿new¿ forms of cross state conservation and the issues these new forms of protected areas raise for development, and how this is linked to questions of authority and governance in many developing countries.
We conclude the course with two topics that have captured the interest of scholars and activists alike: traditional ecological knowledge and its potential as a tool in shaping environment-development outcomes, and environmental social movements and the challenges they raise for both environmental management and the mainstream development industry. Throughout the course we will critically examine the concept of development and environment, asking questions such as: how do our understandings of environment shape the form of management we seek to promote? What challenges do alternatives to mainstream approaches offer back to development practice and development practitioners? As aspirant development workers and scholars of development, how can we best put to use our academic tools and analytical frameworks?
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
| Additional Costs | None |
Course Delivery Information
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| Delivery period: 2013/14 Semester 2, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Learn enabled: Yes |
Quota: 50 |
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Web Timetable |
Web Timetable |
| Course Start Date |
13/01/2014 |
| Breakdown of Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Please contact the School directly for a breakdown of Learning and Teaching Activities |
| Additional Notes |
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| Breakdown of Assessment Methods (Further Info) |
Please contact the School directly for a breakdown of Assessment Methods
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| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
1. to expand students¿ knowledge of current theoretical debates on environment-development issues
2. to explore the intersections of social justice issues with the quest for economic growth.
3. to gain an overview of the key theories of environment and development in circulation today
4. to critically evaluate and differentiate approaches to environment-development questions from a variety of perspectives
5. to apply theories of development to specific examples and understand how the model of development used is relevant to the environmental issues that emerge in that particular case. |
Assessment Information
Essay abstract 10%
Essay (3000 words) 90% |
Special Arrangements
| None |
Additional Information
| Academic description |
This is one of two core courses on the MSc in Environment and Development and combines explicitly environmental questions with those of development. It will provide vital knowledge, analytical skills and exposure to critical scholarship on core issues. |
| Syllabus |
Explore the relationships between international institutions and policies and development work.
Introduce theories of environment and development ranging from community-based natural resource management, conservation and environmental protection, land grabs, the roles of the state in managing resources, environmental movements, political ecology and post-colonial approaches.
Probe issues of human and social development in relation to environmental issues |
| Transferable skills |
Not entered |
| Reading list |
Keyreadings:
Adams, W. M. (2001). Green Development, 2nd Edition Environment and sustainability in the Third World. London, Routledge.
Gidwani, V. (2008). Capital, interrupted: Agrarian development and the politics of work in India. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press.
Harvey, D. (1996). Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference. Cambridge, MA, Blackwell.
O'Riordan, T. (2000). Environmental science on the move. Environmental Science for Environmental Management. T. O'Riordan. London, Longman: 1-27.
Peet, R. and M. Watts (2004). Liberation Ecologies: Environment, Development and Social Movements. London, Routledge.
Scoones, I. (1999). "New ecology and the social sciences: what prospects for a fruitful engagement?" Annual Review of Anthropology 28: 479-507.
Scoones, I. (2009). "Livelihoods perspectives and rural development." Journal of Peasant Studies 36: 171-196.
Shove, E. (2010). "Social Theory and Climate Change." Theory, Culture & Society 27(2-3): 277-288.
Sneddon, C. and C. Fox (2006). "Rethinking transboundary waters: A critical hydropolitics of the Mekong basin." Political Geography 25(2): 181-202.
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| Study Abroad |
Not entered |
| Study Pattern |
In class small group work and discussions that help assess the extent to which students understand the course materials.
There is significant reading. |
| Keywords | Environment, Development, Society |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Samantha Staddon
Tel:
Email: |
Course secretary | Mrs Natasa Honeybone
Tel: (0131 6)50 9975
Email: |
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