ZA321 Imperialism, postcolonialism, and their effects on nature

Faculty of Science
Autumn 2024
Extent and Intensity
1/1/0. 4 credit(s). Type of Completion: zk (examination).
Teacher(s)
RNDr. Mgr. Pavel Doboš, Ph.D. (lecturer)
Guaranteed by
RNDr. Mgr. Pavel Doboš, Ph.D.
Department of Geography – Earth Sciences Section – Faculty of Science
Contact Person: RNDr. Mgr. Pavel Doboš, Ph.D.
Supplier department: Department of Geography – Earth Sciences Section – Faculty of Science
Prerequisites
Ability to read scholarly texts in English.
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is only offered to the students of the study fields the course is directly associated with.
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
Course objectives
This course aims at being an interdisciplinary treatise of how imperialism, colonialism, and postcolonialism has influenced natural environment, as well as people’s cultural and discursive views of it. It draws on thoughts and analyses from the fields of postcolonial studies, postcolonial geographies, and histories of (post)colonialism. During the emergence of colonialism in 16th century and beyond, Western states experienced a passage from pre-modern times into modernity, from feudal economic systems into capitalism and industrialism. These passages and related processes crucially affected natural ecosystems by new types of agriculture, forced migration, exploitation of natural resources, pollution, new efforts of preservation of newly explored “pristine” natures, or even wars. These passages and processes also affected how natural environment and the difference between nature and culture has been perceived. Some colonized people were approached as natural, even savage, in contrast to supposedly cultivated Western colonizer. Outcomes of these processes and differentiations can be seen even today in the age of neoliberal globalization and new imperialisms.
Learning outcomes
After attending to the course students will be able:
- to understand current debates in postcolonial studies and postcolonial geography;
- to apply postcolonial critique into the studies of nature and environment;
- to recognise the interconnection of current global environmental problems with global postcolonial (and imperial) legacies;
- to understand the precariousness of differentiations between the natural and the cultural;
- to discuss about the topic in a geographical way.
Syllabus
  • 1. What is colonialism and what is postcolonialism?
  • 2. Beginnings of postcolonial studies
  • 3. Critical views of Western global dominance
  • 4. Postcolonial insight into the difference between the cultural and the natural
  • 5. World-system theories and the global exploitation of natural resources
  • 6. Orientalism and nature
  • 7. African studies and ideas about African nature
  • 8. Development studies and modernization effects on nature
  • 9. Postcolonial legacies in global efforts to preserve natural environment
  • 10. Nature in the neoliberal view
  • 11. Wars and their destruction of nature
  • 12. Imperialism and oil
Literature
    required literature
  • ROOTHAAN, Angela. Indigenous, Modern and Postcolonial Relations to Nature. London: Routledge, 2020. 180. ISBN 9780367728496
  • Affective Geographies of Transformation, Exploration and Adventure, Edited by Hayley Saul - Emma Waterton. 1st pub. London: Routledge, 2020. 224. ISBN 9780367589189
  • van HOLSTEIN, Ellen; HEAD, Lesley. 2018. Shifting settler-colonial discourses of environmentalism: Representations of indigeneity and migration in Australian conservation. Geoforum 94: 41-52.
  • FARIA, Caroline; KATUSHABE, Jovah; KYOTOWADDE, Catherine; WHITESELL, Dominica. 2021. "You Rise Up... They Burn You Again": Market fires and the urban intimacies of disaster colonialism. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 46(1): 87-101.
  • BRIGHENTI, Andrea Mubi and Mattias KÄRRHOLM. Animated lands : studies in territoriology. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2020, xi, 232. ISBN 9781496213396. info
    recommended literature
  • Wainwright, Joel. 2005. The geographies of political ecology: after Edward Said. Environment and Planning A, 37, 6, 1033-1043.
  • Sawyer, Suzana, and Arun Agrawal. 2000. Environmental Orientalisms. Cultural Critique, 45, 71-108.
  • Blaut, James M. 1993. The Colonizer’s Model of the World. New York: Guilford.
  • Said, Edward W. 1979. Orientalism. New York: Vintage.
  • Arnold, David. 1996. The Problem of Nature. Oxford: Blackwell.
  • Social nature : theory, practice, and politics. Edited by Bruce Braun - Noel Castree. 1st pub. Malden: Blackwell Publishers, 2001, xiv, 249. ISBN 0631215689. info
Teaching methods
Presentations and discussions in class, reading of mandatory literature between classes, writing short texts as homework
Assessment methods
Regular attendance in classes and participation in discussions
Four short texts as written homework (30 % of final classification)
Oral examination (70 % of final classification)
Language of instruction
English
Teacher's information
The course is going to be affected by the research experience and research work of the course teacher.
The course is also listed under the following terms Autumn 2023.
  • Enrolment Statistics (Autumn 2024, recent)
  • Permalink: https://is.muni.cz/course/sci/autumn2024/ZA321