Simon Fraser University
Engaging the World

Course Outlines

Summer 2017 - SA 359 E100

Special Topics in Anthropology (A) (4)

People-Nature Relationships

Class Number: 5678

Delivery Method: In Person

Overview

  • Course Times + Location:

    May 8 – Aug 4, 2017: Wed, 5:30–9:20 p.m.
    Burnaby

  • Prerequisites:

    SA 101 or 150 or 201W.

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Explores a topic in Anthropology not regularly offered by the department.

COURSE DETAILS:

Conservation & Configurations of People-Nature Relationships

This course invites students to creatively and critically engage with themes related to perceptions and productions of the environment at a global economic moment of unprecedented resource extraction, climate change discourse and on-going indigenous struggles for land rights occurring worldwide. Advocacy research at the culture-environment nexus is increasingly entangled in configuring agency, sentience and intersubjectivity in new ways, among human and non-human beings, landscapes and seascapes, to pioneer new platforms and found new policies that acknowledge relationships between social and physical environments and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK).

TEK is gaining new visibility, but efforts to conserve or incorporate traditional knowledge in management-science studies often continue to still measure and categorize nature in ways that resonate with colonial approaches. The consequences of differentiating nature from culture enter debates over biodiversity governance, TEK conservation and global climate change. Students will be encouraged to explore themes around social justice advocacy by examining the ways different configurations of nature deploy particular human/non-human relationships. Looking at the ways nature is enlivened or stilled in different constructions will provide a more nuanced understanding of conservation, and the vocabularies, grammars and methodologies that would support more inclusive conservation frameworks and allow us to think about sustainability more broadly.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

The two main texts, one ethnographic and the other grounded in ethno-ecology, discuss local Indigenous contexts in the Yukon and Alaska, and California respectively, in post-colonial theoretical frameworks that explore encounters between explorers and indigenous peoples and disputed meanings around relationships between people and nature. Assigned readings contextualize environmental transformation through time from an array of sources: narratives, oral traditions, historical archives, songs and scholarly research in anthropology, ethnobiology, ethnobotany and other social sciences. As a class we will explore the ways natural, social and cultural worlds come to be gradually disaggregated and the consequences that fragmentation generates. A key question underlying these readings and the course is how to protect the environment while protecting the historical rights of people who co-created it and tended to it.

Grading

  • Participation (class activities, writing exercises, round-table discussions) 15%
  • Written summaries and critical analyses (2 sets) 30%
  • Self-reflective journal 5%
  • Class presentation 15%
  • Abstract and outline 5%
  • Final paper 30%

NOTES:

Where a final exam is scheduled and you do not write the exam or withdraw from the course before the deadline date, you will be assigned an N grade. Unless otherwise specified on the course outline, all other graded assignments in this course must be completed for a final grade other than N to be assigned.

REQUIREMENTS:

Academic Dishonesty and Misconduct Policy
The Department of Sociology and Anthropology follows SFU policy in relation to grading practices, grade appeals (Policy T 20.01) and academic dishonesty and misconduct procedures (S10.01-­‐ S10.04). Unless otherwise informed by your instructor in writing, in graded written assignments you must cite the sources you rely on and include a bibliography/list of references, following an instructor-approved citation style. It is the responsibility of students to inform themselves of the content of SFU policies available on the SFU website: http://www.sfu.ca/policies/gazette/student.html.

Materials

REQUIRED READING:

Anderson, E. N.; Pearsall, Deborah; Hunn Eugene; Turner, Nancy. (2011). Ethnobiology. Wiley-Blackwell, 2011. [On-line]
ISBN: 9780470547854

Anderson, M. Kat. Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California’s Natural Resources. University of California Press, 2005.  [On-line]
ISBN: 97805202804347

Cruikshank, Julie. Do Glaciers Listen? Local Knowledge, Colonial Encounters and Social Imagination. UBC Press, 2006. [On-line]
ISBN: 9780774811873

Additional articles and chapters will be available on Canvas and through the SFU Library.

RECOMMENDED READING:

For tips on writing:
Narayan, Kirin. Alive in the Writing: Crafting Ethnography in the Company of Chekhov. University of Chicago Press, 2012.
ISBN: 9780226568195

Registrar Notes:

SFU’s Academic Integrity web site http://students.sfu.ca/academicintegrity.html is filled with information on what is meant by academic dishonesty, where you can find resources to help with your studies and the consequences of cheating.  Check out the site for more information and videos that help explain the issues in plain English.

Each student is responsible for his or her conduct as it affects the University community.  Academic dishonesty, in whatever form, is ultimately destructive of the values of the University. Furthermore, it is unfair and discouraging to the majority of students who pursue their studies honestly. Scholarly integrity is required of all members of the University. http://www.sfu.ca/policies/gazette/student/s10-01.html

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY: YOUR WORK, YOUR SUCCESS