Bi4224 Environmental anthropology

Faculty of Science
Spring 2022
Extent and Intensity
1/0/0. 2 credit(s). Type of Completion: zk (examination).
Taught online.
Teacher(s)
Paride Bollettin, MSc., Ph.D. (lecturer)
Guaranteed by
Paride Bollettin, MSc., Ph.D.
Department of Anthropology – Biology Section – Faculty of Science
Contact Person: Paride Bollettin, MSc., Ph.D.
Supplier department: Department of Anthropology – Biology Section – Faculty of Science
Timetable
Fri 19:00–20:30 online
Prerequisites
The course does not require any prerequisite.
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is also offered to the students of the fields other than those the course is directly associated with.
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
Course objectives
The course aims at making students able to observe, study, and discuss the complex interactions intermingling humans and their biosocial environments.
Learning outcomes
Trough the course, students will acquire basic knowledge on:
1) the diverse ways of situate human-environment relations along the history of anthropological debates;
2) alternative, culturally grounded, forms of experiencing the environment in diverse societies;
3) current debates on the complexity of human-environment interactions with an eye on the ecological crisis.
Syllabus
  • 1. Nature-Culture
    Readings:
    Descola, Philippe. 2009. The two natures of Lévi-Strauss. In B. Wiseman (Ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Lévi-Strauss, 103-117. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    Ingold, Tim. 2013. Dreaming of dragons: on the imagination of real life. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 19: 734-752.

    Additional reading:
    Ortner, Sherry B. 1974. Is female to male as nature is to culture? In M.Z. Rosaldo and L. Lamphere (Eds.). Woman, culture, and society, 68-87. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    2. Humans and the others in intermingled worlds
    Readings:
    Candea, Matei. 2010. “I fell in love with Carlos the meerkat: Engagement and detachement in human-animal relations. American Ethnologist 37(2): 241-258.
    Tsing, Anna L. 2018. Nine provocations for the study of domestication. In A.H. Swanson, M.E. Lien and G.B. Ween (Eds.). Domestication gone wild, 231-251. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Additional reading:
    Haraway, Donna. 2006. Encounters with Companion Species: Entangling Dogs, Baboons, Philosophers, and Biologists. Configurations 14(1/2): 97-114.

    3. Ethnography beyond the “human”
    Readings:
    Gibson, Diana. 2018. Towards plant-centred methodologies in anthropology. Anthropology Southern Africa 41(2): 92–103.
    Kirksey, S. Eben, and Stefan Helmreich. 2010. The emergence of multispecies ethnography. Cultural Anthropology 25(4): 545–576.

    Additional reading:
    Hartigan Jr, John. 2017. ‘How to Interview a Plant: Ethnography of Life Forms’. In Care of the Species: Races of Corn and the Science of Plant Biodiversity, 253–81. Minneapolis [et al.]: University of Minnesota Press.

    4. “Eat”, “think”, and “live” the environment
    Readings:
    Calkins, Sandra. 2019. ‘Bananas, Humanitarian Biotech, and Human-Plant Histories in Uganda’. Medicine Anthropology Theory 6 (3): 29–53.
    Freidberg, Susanne. 2003. ‘French Beans for the Masses: A Modern Historical Geography of Food in Burkina Faso’. Journal of Historical Geography 29 (3): 445–63.

    Additional reading:
    Harris, Marvin et al. 1966. The Cultural Ecology of India’s Sacred Cattle. Current Anthropology 7(1): 51-66.

    5. Cultural views of the environment
    Readings:
    Krenak, Ailton and Duarte, Andreia. 2021. Silence of the World: Scenic Experiment Script. TDR 65(4): 67-76.
    Prihandoko. Sanjatmiko. 2021. Multispecies ethnography: reciprocal interaction between residents and the environment in Segara Anakan, Indonesia. South East Asia Research 29(3): 384-400.
    Vianello, Rita. 2021. Venetian Lagoon Mussel farming Between Tradition and Innovation. An Example of Changes in Perception and Multispecies Relation”. Lagoonscapes. The Venice Journal of Environmental Humanities 1(2): 315-336.

    Additional reading:
    Meneley, Anne. 2021. ‘Eating Wild: Hosting the Food Heritage of Palestine’. PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 44 (2): 207–222.

    6. Political environments
    Readings:
    Howard, Penny McCall. 2018. ‘The Anthropology of Human-Environment Relations: Materialism with and without Marxism’. Focaal 2018 (82): 64–79.
    Reis-Castro, Luisa. 2021. Becoming Without: Making Transgenic Mosquitoes and Disease Control in Brazil. Environmental Humanities 13(2): 323-347.

    Additional reading:
    Brown, Kate. 2019. Learning to Read the Great Chernobyl Acceleration. Current Anthropology 60(20): 198-208.
    Calkins, Sandra. 2021. ‘Toxic Remains: Infrastructural Failure in a Ugandan Molecular Biology Lab’. Social Studies of Science, April, 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1177/03063127211011531.
Teaching methods
The classes will be held online (platform will be indicated), with introducing presentations and collective discussions.
Assessment methods
Students will be asked to produce a brief paper (max 10 pages) describing an ethnographic case of their own choice to be discussed using the course bibliographic materials.
Language of instruction
English
Further comments (probably available only in Czech)
Study Materials
The course is taught annually.
Teacher's information
Paride Bollettin: https://www.muni.cz/en/people/247100-paride-bollettin
The course is also listed under the following terms Spring 2023, Spring 2024, Spring 2025.
  • Enrolment Statistics (Spring 2022, recent)
  • Permalink: https://is.muni.cz/course/sci/spring2022/Bi4224