GEOGRAPHY 537: CULTURE AND ENVIRONMENT
Fall, 2004
Matthew Turner, 340 Science Hall, 262-2465, turner@geography.wisc.edu Office hours: M 11-12; MTF 1-2
Course Description. This is a course about the relationship between rural subsistence cultures and their biophysical environment. How do such societies transform and adapt to their biophysical environments? How do broader political economic, cultural, and biophysical changes affect this interaction at a local level? A number of different analytical approaches have been used to study this complex relationship within a range of disciplines, most notably geography and anthropology. In this course we will evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of these approaches by reading and discussing a combination of theoretical works and case studies. A strong emphasis of this course will be to trace out how these theories have shaped environment/development policy in the Third World, with material impacts on rural peoples. Case study material will focus largely but not entirely on two production systems common in developing countries: dryland pastoralism and rainforest swidden cultivation.
There is a heavy emphasis on assigned reading in this course. "Required Readings (REQ) and "Recommended Readings" (REC) will be journal articles or book sections that will be placed on reserve in the Geography Library (280 Science Hall) . Other readings may replace or be added to the readings listed in this syllabus -- any changes will not add more than 10 pages per week. Each week, I will spend some time talking at the beginning and/or end of period to supplement the readings for that day or the following week. The rest of the period will be spent discussing the readings for that week. You are expected to read the assigned material prior to these discussions.
COURSE OUTLINE AND READINGS
7 September Introduction to
the course
14-September Sustainable
development revisited
REQ:
Broad , R. 1994. The poor and the environment: Friends or foes? World Development 22 (6):811-822.
Lélé , S. 1991. Sustainable development: a critical review. World Development 19:607-621.
Brosius, J.P., A.L. Tsing, and C. Zerner. 1998.
Representing communities: histories and politics of community-based natural
resource management. Society and Natural Resources 11 (2):157-168.
REC:
Brookfield
, H. and C. Padoch. 1994. Appreciating agrodiversity: a look at the dynamism
and diversity of indigenous farming practices. Environment 36 (5):6-11, 37-45.
Guha , R. 2000. The Southern Challenge. pgs 98-123 In Environmentalism: A Global History. New York: Longman.
21 September Environmental
determinism and origins of Cultural Ecology
REQ:
Diamond,
J. 1998 A natural experiment of history. Pgs 53-66 (chapter 2) in Guns, Germs
and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies. NY: W.W.Norton and Company.
Beckerman , S. 1987. Swidden in Amazonia and the Amazon rim. pgs 55-94. In Turner, B.L. and S.B. Brush, eds. Comparative Farming Systems. New York: Guilford Press.
Steward , J.H. 1977. Chapters 1 and 2. pgs 43-67 In Evolution and Ecology: Essays on Social Transformation, edited by J. C. Steward and R. F. Murphy. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
REC:
Ellen, R. 1982. Environment, Subsistence and System. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, esp Chapters 1-3 (copies of book on reserve in Geography Library).
Chapter 1 : The technology and knowledge of intensive farm practices. pgs 28-57 In [NETTING]
Sachs , J. (1997). "The limits of convergence: Nature, nurture and growth." The Economist (June, 14): 19-22.
28 September Ecocosmologies
and environmental regulation
REQ:
van Beek , W.E.A. and P.M. Banga. Chapter 4: The Dogon and their trees. pgs 57-75 IN [CROLL]
van den Breemer , J.P.M. Ideas and usage: Environment in Aouan society, Ivory Coast. pgs 97-109 IN [CROLL]
Rappaport , R.A. 1969. Ritual regulation of environmental relations among a New Guinea people. pgs 181-201 In Environment and Cultural Behavior, edited by A. P. Vayda. Garden City, New York: The Natural History Press.
REC:
Ingold , T. 1996. Hunting and gathering as ways of perceiving the environment. pgs 117-156 In Redfining Nature: Ecology, Culture and Domestication, edited by R. Ellen and K. Fukui. Oxford: Berg.
Peluso, N.L. and M. Watts. 2001. Violent environments. pgs 3-38 In Violent Environments, edited by N. L. Peluso and M. Watts. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.
Rappaport , R.A. 1990. Ecosystems, populations and people. pgs 41-72 In The Ecosystem Approach in Anthropology, edited by E. F. Moran. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Williams, R. 1980. Ideas of Nature. Pages 67-85
in Problems in Materialism and
Culture. Verso, London.
5 October Human systems ecology: Energetics
and carrying capacity
REQ:
Brush, S.B. 1975. The concept of carrying capacity for systems of shifting cultivation. American Anthropologist 77:799-811.
Bernard , F.E., D.J. Campbell, and D.J. Thom. 1989. Carrying capacity of the eastern ecological gradient of Kenya. National Geographic Research 5 (4):399-421.
Little , M. A. et al. 1990. Ecosystem approaches in human biology: Their history and a case study of the South Turkana Ecosystem Project. pgs 389-434 In The Ecosystem Approach in Anthropology. edited by E. F. Moran. Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press.
REC:
Chapter 4
: Energy inputs, outputs, and sustainable systems. Pgs 123-145 IN [NETTING]
Harvey , D.
1974. Population, resources, and the ideology as science. Economic Geography
50: 256-277.
12 October Adding temporal
depth to adaptation framework: Demographic-technical change
REQ:
Chapter 3 : Labor-time allocation and Chapter 9 : Intensive agriculture, population density, markets and the smallholder adaptation. pgs 102-122 and 261-294 In [NETTING]
Zimmerer , K. 1993. Soil erosion and labor shortages in the Andes with special reference to Bolivia, 1953-91: Implication for "conservation-with-development". World Development 21 (10):1659-1675.
REC:
Boserup, E. 1965. The Conditions of Agricultural Growth: The Economics of Agrarian Change under Population Pressure. London: Allen and Unwin. (pgs 15-55, 70-87 – book on reserve in Geography Library)
Tiffen , M. and M. Mortimore. 1994. Malthus controverted: The role of capital and technology in growth and environmental recovery in Kenya. World Development 22 (7):997-1010.
Murton , J. 1999. Population growth and poverty in Machakos District, Kenya. Geographical Journal 165 (1):37-46.
19 October Territoriality
and customary institutions: Is there a tragedy in the commons?
REQ:
Ostrom , E. 1990. Reflections on the commons. pgs 1-28 In Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Peters , P. 1987. Embedded systems and rooted models: The grazing lands of Botswana and the commons debate. pgs 171-194 In The Question of the Commons: The Culture and Ecology of Communal Resources, edited by B. J. McCay and J. M. Acheson. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press.
REC:
Turner , M. D. 1999. The role of social networks, indefinate boundaries and political bargaining in maintaining the ecological and economic resiliency of the transhumance systems of Sudano-Sahelian West Africa. pgs 97-123 In Managing Mobility in African Rangelands: the Legitimization of Transhumance. M. Niamir-Fuller. London, Intermediate Technology Publications.
Goldman , M. 1998. Inventing the commons: Theories and practices of the commons' professional. pgs 20-53 In Privatizing Nature: Political Struggles for the Global Commons. New Brunswick, NJ, Rutgers University Press.
26 October Political
economy of local resource management
REQ:
Watts , M. 1983. On the poverty of theory: natural hazards research in context. pgs 231-262 In K. Hewitt ed.Interpretations of calamity. Risk and Hazards Series #1. London: Allen Unwin.
Peluso , N.L. 1993. Coercing conservation? The
politics of state resource control. Global Environmental Change 3 (2):199-217.
Carney , J. 1996. Converting the wetlands, engendering the environment. pgs 165-187 In [PEET]
REC:
Deere , D. D. and A. de Janvry 1979. A conceptual framework for the empirical analysis of peasants. Giannini Foundation Paper No. 535
Heynig , K. 1982. The principal schools of thought on the peasant economy. CEPAL Review (April, 1982): 113-139.
2-November Political Ecology (paper
proposals due)
REQ:
Blaikie, P. and H. Brookfield 1987. Land Degradation and Society. Chapters 1-2. (pgs 1-48) London: Methuen
Bryant , R. 1992. Political ecology: An emerging research agenda in Third World Societies. Political Geography 11 (1):12-36.
REC:
Vayda , A.P. and B.B. Walters. 1999. Against political ecology. Human Ecology 27 (1):167-179.
Escobar, A. 1999. After nature: Steps to an antiessentialist political ecology. Current Anthro. 40 :1-30.
9-November Political
Ecologies -- Cases
REQ:
Bassett , T.J. 1988. The political ecology of peasant-herder conflicts in the northern Ivory Coast. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 78 (3):453-472.
Moore , D.S. 1993. Contesting terrain in Zimbabwe's eastern highlands: political ecology, ethnography, and peasant resource struggles. Economic Geography 69 (4):380-401.
Turner, M.D. Environmental science and social causation in the analysis of Sahelian pastoralism. pp. 159-178 In [ZIMMERER]
McCarthy, J. 2002. First World political ecology: lessons from the Wise Use movement. Environment and Planning A 34(7): 1281-1302.
Neumann,
R.P. Nature-state-territory: Toward a critical theorization of
conservation enclosures. Pgs 195-217 in [PEET]
Zimmerer, K.S. Environmental discourses on soil degradation in Bolivia. Pgs 107-124 In [PEET]
16 November Mid-term Exam
23-November Environmental
narratives in development
REQ:
Bassett, T.J. and Zuéli, K.B. The Ivorian
savanna: Global narratives and
local knowledge of environmental change. pp. 115-136. in [ZIMMERER]
Fairhead , J. and M. Leach. Rethinking the forest savanna mosaic: Colonial science and its relics in West Africa. pgs 105-121 in [LEACH]
Hoben , A. The cultural construction of environmental policy: Paradigms and politics in Ethiopia. pgs 186-208 in[LEACH]
Sundberg, J. Strategies for authenticity and space in the Maya Biosphere Reserve, Petén, Guatemala. pp. 50-69 in [ZIMMERER]
Zerner , C. 1996. Telling stories about biological diversity. pgs 68-101 In Valuing Local Knowledge, edited by S. B. Brush and D. Stabinsky. Washington, D.C.: Island Press.
REC:
Brockington , D. and K. Homewood. Wildlife, pastoralists and science: Debates concerning Mkomazi game reserve, Tanzania. pgs 91-104 in [LEACH]
30-November Land-use
ecology: Indigenous resource use and assessment tools of ecology
REQ:
Ellis , J.E. and D.M. Swift. 1988. Stability of African pastoral ecosystems: alternate paradigms and implications for development. Journal of Range Management 41:450-459.
Behnke , R. and I. Scoones. 1993. Rethinking range ecology: implications for rangeland management in Africa. pgs 1-30 In Range Ecology at Disequilibrium, edited by R. Behnke, I. Scoones and C. Kervan. London: Overseas Development Institute.
Acheson, J.M., J.A. Wilson, and R.S. Steneck. 1998.
Managing chaotic fisheries. pgs 390-413 In Linking Social and Ecological
Systems: Management Practices and
Social Mechanisms for Building Resilience, edited by F. Berkes and C. Folke.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
REC:
Dodd , J.L. 1994. Desertification and degradation in Sub-Saharan Africa. The role of livestock. Bioscience 44 (1):28-34
Turner , M.D. 1998. The interaction of grazing history with rainfall and its influence on annual rangeland dynamics in the Sahel. pgs 237-261 In Nature's Geography: New Lessons for Conservation in Developing Countries ed., K. Zimmerer and K. Young, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
7-December Implications of
nonequilibrium ecology for people-environment research
REQ:
Zimmerer , K.S. 1994. Human geography and the "new ecology": The prospect and promise of integration. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 84: 108-125.
Forsyth , T. 1998. Mountain myths revisited: integrating natural and social environmental science. Mountain Research and Development 18:107-116.
Dove , M.R. 1996. Process versus product in Bornean augury: A traditional knowledge system's solution to the problem of knowing. pgs 557-596 In Redefining Nature: Ecology, Culture and Domestication, edited by R. Ellen and K. Fukui. Oxford: Berg.
REC:
Zimmerer , K.S. 1998. Disturbances and diverse crops in the farm landscapes of highland South America. pgs 262-286 In Nature's Geography: New Lessons for Conservation in Developing Countries ed., K. Zimmerer and K. Young, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Scoones , I. 1997. The dynamics of soil fertility change: Historical perspectives on environmental transformation from Zimbabwe. The Geographical Journal 163 (2):161-169.
Richards , P. 1995. The versatility of the poor: Indigenous wetland management systems in Sierra Leone. GeoJournal 35 (2):197-203.
14-December Decentralization in development/conservation and the
politics of indigenous and scientific knowledges
REQ:
Agrawal, A. and Ribot, J. 1999. Accountability in decentralization: A
framework with South Asian and West African cases. Journal of Developing Areas
33, 473-502.
Nadasdy, P. 1999. The politics of TEK: Power and the "integration"
of knowledge. Artic Anthropology 36 (1-2):1-18.
REC:
Agrawal, A. 1995. Dismantling the divide between indigenous and scientific knowledge. Development and Change 26 (3):413-439.
Walker, P.A. 1999. Democracy and environment: congruencies and contradictions in southern Africa. Political Geography 18(3): 257-284.
(FINAL
PAPERS DUE BY December 17, 2004)