Bachelor
2023/2024
Anthropology of Sustainability and Development
Type:
Elective course (Sociology and Social Informatics)
Area of studies:
Sociology
Delivered by:
Department of Sociology
When:
4 year, 1, 2 module
Mode of studies:
offline
Open to:
students of all HSE University campuses
Instructors:
Ilya Ermolin
Language:
English
ECTS credits:
5
Contact hours:
48
Course Syllabus
Abstract
In 2015, the United Nations adopted 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) following the publication of «Limits to Growth» (1972) and the Brundtland Report (1987). The aims declared were to reduce poverty and hunger, achieve gender equality, respond to urgent climate changes, and support efforts to follow responsible production and consumption. SDGs are ambitious and demand persons who seek to develop insights into development issues to acquire suitable interdisciplinary skills. Drawing on interdisciplinary disciplines such as environmental and economic anthropology, political and cultural ecology as well, the module initially introduces the basics of anthropology as a discipline, then glances over an anthropological look at the history of sustainability and development. Anthropocene serves as the conceptual framework to address the cultural, economic, and environmental sustainability where the risk, vulnerability, and resilience act as important variables to shed new light on controversial meanings of poverty and different inequalities (gender, refugee-migration), viewed through the prism of humanitarianism, disaster, and crisis. A key focus of the module is to understand how different sustainability factors (climate change, shortage of water and food, biodiversity loss, etc.) threatening poverty and different inequalities influence the implementation of development projects. Particularly, the lecture on Caspian Environment Programme (CEP) sets the scene for a broader discussion of the work of development actors. Topics to be covered in the course: • General Introduction to Anthropology • Introduction to Anthropology of sustainability and development • Anthropocene as the conceptual paradigm • Risk, vulnerability, and resilience • Humanitarianism and disaster capitalism: projects in sustainable development • Сlimate change and shortage of water and food. • Refugees and migration caused by natural disasters • Poverty and «the poor» • Gender inequality A particular block will be devoted to studying the methods of field study and further concepts of data analysis. We will pay attention to the following methods: free-listing, pile-sorting, cultural consensus analysis, participant observation, ethnographic interviews. Separately we will take Q-sort methodology during the lecture. The methods are supposed to be used while conducting and then writing the research analytical note.
Learning Objectives
- Look through the theories and concepts of anthropology of sustainability and development and understand how they can be applied to the post-2015 development policy.
- Gain familiarity with interdisciplinary nature of social and environmental change within different social and cultural settings.
- Gain familiarity with interdisciplinary nature of social and environmental change within different social and cultural settings.
Expected Learning Outcomes
- Gain skills to apply them to work with different databases on sustainability and development issues.
- Acquire capacity to assess obtained data, methods and evidence critically, and understand the contributions and limits of different types of knowledge production.
- Gain knowledge on how to set out arguments and viewpoints effectively and coherently, orally and in writing
- Acquire capacity to work with specific case (to make a choice of their own) and be able to draw up an expert evaluation of specific cases
Course Contents
- General Introduction to Anthropology
- Introduction to Anthropology of sustainability and development
- Anthropocene as the conceptual paradigm
- How to study sustainability and development within anthropology: freelisting method.
- How to study sustainability and development within anthropology: pilesorting method
- How to study sustainability and development within anthropology: Cultural Consensus analysis
- Risk, vulnerability, and resilience: disaster and crisis
- Sustainability and Development issues addressed: climate change, shortage of water and food, biodiversity conservation.
- Humanitarianism and disaster capitalism.
- Refugees and migration caused by natural disasters
- Poverty, «the poor» and sustainability
- Disease, health, and inequality
- Литература к курсу
Assessment Elements
- Home assignmentsThe students will be asked to watch online lectures on YouTube channel that were selected by lecture to provide them with a better understanding of the discipline. The lecturer will assess the ability of the student to catch up the sense of the main argument (s) of the online lecture and opportunities to apply the knowledge gained in their specific area of interest.
- class participation (discussion) (Workshop attendance and activities)
- Final essay (Research analytical note)
Interim Assessment
- 2023/2024 2nd module0.6 * Final essay (Research analytical note) + 0.08 * Home assignments + 0.07 * Home assignments + 0.13 * class participation (discussion) (Workshop attendance and activities) + 0.12 * class participation (discussion) (Workshop attendance and activities)
Bibliography
Recommended Core Bibliography
- Anthropology and development : culture, morality and politics in a globalised world, Crewe, E., 2013
- Social and cultural anthropology : a very short introduction, Monaghan, J., 2000
- Social and cultural anthropology : the key concepts, Rapport, N., 2007
Recommended Additional Bibliography
- Key debates in anthropology, , 1996