Critical Debates in Environm & Dev (928AF)
Critical Debates in Environment and Development
Module 928AF
Module details for 2021/22.
30 credits
FHEQ Level 7 (Masters)
Module Outline
The aim of this module is to gain familiarity with cutting edge debates linking environment and development. The modules cover controversies ranging from the emergence ‘market-based approaches’ and offsetting and whether they address environmental sustainability, through to deliberations concerning geoengineering (purposefully altering the planetary ‘thermostat’). The module examines controversies concerning dominant approaches to forest policy known as REDD+, and why there are social movements against it. It examines how solutions to climate change, combining carbon sequestration, conservation and biofuels give new value to land and sea, and how this is associated with emerging social inequalities sometimes framed as 'Land Grabbing', 'Green Grabbing' and 'Blue Grabbing'. We examine controversies about how policy links climate change to migration, and to conflict. We examine developments in law are giving rights to the natural world and the power of earth law to direct environmental futures. We consider how environmental science and futures has been shaped by political populism. These are among the key environmental debates of our times. The research paper that you develop for the evaluation of this course will enable you to contribute to these, or indeed to other pressing debates.
A subsidiary aim is to develop research skills and in particular to develop skills in establishing analytical frameworks and the use of evidence in relation to them. We call this module ‘Critical Debates’ both because the debates are critical to our futures, and because we bring the critical social sciences to bear on them, to examine the social and political implications of policy trends and options, including questions of inequality and injustice that are also crucial to their effectiveness.
The ethos of the course is thus shaped by the UN Sustainable Development Goals, their universalism, and the policies focused on their achievement, but students should think critically. We will discuss current research that both outlines and questions much of the mainstream analysis of environmental problems and their social causes that now informs development policy and practice. The readings not only draw on human geography and anthropology, but also on interdisciplinary fields such as political ecology, historical ecology, and draw on methods reflecting different social values (e.g. taking a pro-poor, or politically marginalised perspective).
The debates covered will force us to expose relations between power, environmental knowledge and environmental policy. We explore their significance for understanding the relationship between poverty, environmental science and policy, and consider how these relations are changing given the globalisation of environmental science and policy.
Module learning outcomes
Awareness of current problems and/or new insights at the forefront of Social Sciences of Environment, Development and Policy.
Originality in the application of knowledge and critical analysis to a research topic.
| Type | Timing | Weighting |
|---|---|---|
| Essay (5000 words) | Semester 2 Assessment Week 2 Thu 16:00 | 100.00% |
Timing
Submission deadlines may vary for different types of assignment/groups of students.
Weighting
Coursework components (if listed) total 100% of the overall coursework weighting value.
| Term | Method | Duration | Week pattern |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spring Semester | Seminar | 2 hours | 11111111111 |
| Spring Semester | Lecture | 2 hours | 11111111111 |
| Spring Semester | Film | 2 hours | 11111111111 |
How to read the week pattern
The numbers indicate the weeks of the term and how many events take place each week.
Miss Megan Sweeney
Assess convenor
/profiles/403351
Prof Anne-Meike Fechter
Assess convenor
/profiles/158737
Prof James Fairhead
Assess convenor, Convenor
/profiles/126936
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