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Ecological Struggles

Module description

This module examines global struggles over the environment. The module will provide you with an engaging overview – academically rigorous yet practically applicable – to key topics in a range of ecological problems. 

The aim is to allow non-specialist students, without having taken any prerequisites, to study the role of politics and socioeconomic contestation at local, national and global level in these enormously important areas of human and non-human life. The module is available as an option in interdisciplinary pathways.

Module aims - intentions of the module

The module aims to provide you with

1)     A knowledge of the scholarly debates over the political and social life of the environment

2)     An understanding of the key faultlines in global policy-making around ecological problems

3)     An ability to recognise the stakes of and apply trans-disciplinary theories to real-world cases such as climate change, air and water pollution, waste production, ocean acidification, and species extinction, as well as the connections these processes have to health, disability, and human flourishing

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Demonstrate clear knowledge of contemporary issues concerning environmental problems
• 2. Critically apply knowledge of the theories and empirical research on specific case studies to real-world problems.

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 3. Acquire familiarity with and mastery of broad transdisciplinary approaches to the study of ecological issues
• 4. Exercise critical judgment on ongoing policy and political struggles over environmental issues

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 5. Develop and conduct independent research, critical judgement, and write clearly and persuasively
• 6. Develop presentation abilities and the judgement to identify spurious arguments in contemporary politics.

Syllabus plan

While the content of this module is likely to change from year to year, to reflect advances in the field as well as addressing urgent topical case studies, it is envisaged that we will cover some or all of the following topics:

• An overview of the history of emergence of the environment as an area of concern
• Introduction to critical approaches to environment (including Marxist ecology and feminist ecology inter alia)
• Examining global and local environmental racism
• Examining the connections of environmental struggles and conflicts with human health and disability
• Critically studying mainstream economic, sociological, and policy-making approaches to ecological problems
• Discussion of at least 5 specific environmental problems (the selection will reflect current urgent issues in the news, or paradigmatic shifts in the literature).
• A critical examination of the role of militaries, wars and conflicts in, before, and after environmental devastation

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

Basic reading: 

• Blanchette, Alex, 2020, Porkopolis: American Animality, Standardized Life, and the Factory Farm (Duke).
• Buller, Adrienne, 2022, The Value of a Whale: On the Illusion of Green Capitalism (Manchester University Press).
• Chakrabarty, Dipesh, 2021. The Climate of History in a Planetary Age (University of Chicago Press).
• Cronon, William, 1996, Uncommon Ground: rethinking human place in nature (W.W. Norton).
• Davis, Mike, 2002, Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino Famines and the Making of the Third World (Verso).
• Derr, Jennifer, 2019, The Lived Nile: Environment, Disease, and Material Colonial Economy in Egypt (Stanford).
• Griffiths Mark, and Rubaii, Kali, 2024, “Late Modern War and the geos: The ecological beforemaths of advanced military technologies” in Security Dialogue (Online first).
• Grove, Jairus Victor, 2019, Savage Ecology: War and Geopolitics at the End of the World (Duke).
• Gunel, Gokce, 2019, Spaceship in the Desert: Energy, Climate Change and Urban Design in Abu Dhabi (Duke).
• Hamouchene, Hamza and Katie Sandwell (eds), 2023, Dismantling Green Colonialism: Energy and Climate Justice in the Arab Region (Pluto).
• Henni, Samia (ed.), 2022, Deserts Are Not Empty Spaces. Columbia Books.
• Khayyat, Munira, 2022, Landscape of War: Ecologies of Resistance and Survival in South Lebanon (University of California Press).
• Kimmerere, Robin Wall, 2013, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants (Milkweed Editions)
• Koch, Natalie, 2022. Arid Empire: The Entangled Fates of Arizona and Arabia (Verso).
• Parsons, Laurie, 2023, Carbon Colonialism: How Rich Countries Export Climate Breakdown (Manchester University Press).
• Rubaii, Kali, 2023, “This Is Why We Protect the Rivers, This Is How We Love the Rivers” in Critical Times 6:2.
• Sieferle, Rolf Peter, 1982. The Subterranean Forest: Energy Systems and the Industrial Revolution (the White Horse Press).
• Stamatapolous, Robbins, Sophia, 2019, Waste Siege: The Life of Infrastructure in Palestine (Stanford university Press).
• Ware, Vron, 2022, Return of a Native: Learning from the Land (Repeater Books).

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

Indicative learning resources - Other resources

• Students should familiarise themselves with the outputs of leading national and international ecology think-tanks, specialist blogs, and major newspapers’ financial, environmental commentary

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