Course Description
Designed to help students deepen their familiarity with environmental governance scholarship and practice while building the skill sets required to position their own scholarship within these debates through a co-developed and co-authored journal publication on a topic of interest.
Athena Title
Environmental Governance
Prerequisite
ANTH 8515
Semester Course Offered
Offered fall
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
By the end of this semester, students should: 1. Be familiar with key concepts and various strands of scholarship pertaining to environmental governance from the perspectives of social theory and practice. 2. Be able to draw on new concepts and literatures, and on the wider bodies of social theory they bring into the class, to identify a novel contribution to the literature, develop these ideas, and follow it through to publication. 3. Gain skills in academic collaboration by working with peers in all stages of the writing process, from the identification of a topic and its positioning within the wider environmental governance scholarship, to the development of an argument and outline for developing that argument; negotiating the division of labor; peer review and revision; journal identification and submission.
Topical Outline
The 1-credit component of this course explores major themes in environmental governance scholarship and “maps” the field in broad terms. The topical outline for this component will evolve over time as the literature evolves and based on student interests, but is likely to cover the following topics: 1. Governance histories and trends centered in European and non-European intellectual traditions (e.g., liberalism/neoliberalism, Indigenous traditions, traditions of radical democracy rooted in subaltern social movements) 2. Governance forms and instruments: community/self-organization, hierarchy/State, market, contract, hybridization 3. Key themes/trends: governance scaling (decentralization, subsidiarity, polycentricity), formalization/privatization, environmental services, process (participation vs. self-determination) 4. Key concepts: accountability, authority, legitimacy, power, sovereignty 5. Critiques: governmentality, "good governance," decolonial perspectives, feminist critiques, critical development studies, critical legal studies, and critiques of rights-based discourses The topical outline for the 3-credit component of this class is in 3 parts: (1) identification of a topic of interest and agreeing how to position it within the wider literature; and (2) writing, peer review, and revision of key sections of the paper; and (3) integration (connecting the various sections to tighten the line of argument) and journal submission. PART 1: IDENTIFYING AND POSITIONING NOVEL CONTRIBUTION (4 weeks) In Part 1, students will identify a novel contribution to the literature; explore how to position this contribution within the academic literature and/or within non-academic debates; and develop an outline for the final paper. Throughout this time, students will read more deeply on the topics of interest. The following iterative components will define this stage: i. Brainstorm (student interests, topic identification) ii. Reading and discussion iii. Identification of knowledge gaps and division of responsibilities for addressing those gaps iv. Peer learning I (cross-fertilization through student sharing of what they learned from academic literature and non-academic debates; identification of further reading to be done) v. Development of an outline for the paper and a target journal PART 2: WRITING, PEER REVIEW, AND REVISION In Part 2, students will engage in an iterative process of drafting, peer review and revision for key sections of the text, drawing on additional readings as needed to deepen the analysis. The following iterative components will define this stage: vi. Agreeing on writing style and division of labor vii. Drafting viii. Peer review and revision PART 3: INTEGRATION AND SUBMISSION This final part of the course will focus on integration (tightening the line of argumentation throughout the paper, harmonizing writing styles) and formatting the paper for journal submission.