Master
2022/2023
Anthropology of Sustainability and Development
Type:
Elective course (Population and Development)
Area of studies:
Public Administration
Delivered by:
Department of Sociology
Where:
Faculty of Social Sciences
When:
2 year, 1, 2 module
Mode of studies:
offline
Open to:
students of all HSE University campuses
Instructors:
Ilya Ermolin
Master’s programme:
Population and Development
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
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 conceptual knowledge on how to deal with sustainability and development practice
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
- Risk, vulnerability and resilience: disaster and crisis
- Humanitarianism and disaster capitalism.
- Sustainability and Development issues addressed: climate change, shortage of water and food, deforestation, desertification, and biodiversity conservation
- Caspian Environment Programme
- Refugees and migration caused by natural disasters
- Poverty, «the poor» and sustainability
- Obligatory Lecture 3: Alternative economies and sustainability: how to survive in «autonomous» world.
- Disease, health and inequality
Assessment Elements
- Workshop attendance and activitiesThe students should read articles/chapters of the books that the lecturer will ask them to read (mainly in groups), make presentation of the models/ideas set out in articles/chapters of the books, in some cases provide own analysis of case (s), and answer the lecturer’s questions concerning the content of articles/books while attending the workshop. There is also an option to make at least one presentation on the topic under study, but options are limited.
- Online-lecture (home assignments)The students will be asked to watch online-lectures on YouTube channel that were selected by lectures 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.
- Analytical Research note (Final Essay)3. Analytical Research note presenting an analysis of one of the issues in anthropology of sustainability and development. The issue should be presented in the form of case study. The list of suggested case studies will be sent to students before the second module of the course starts. The consultations with the lecturer are encouraged to appoint before the topic is selected. Students are strongly encouraged to use the following format to plan the analytical research note: 1. Introduction: a. What is research analytical note about (argument/hypothesis)? A student must apply the theoretical tools studied during the course. b. The general description of the specific sustainability area 2. The description of case study. Why did you choose it? 3. The theory used to analyze the materials collected to support the hypotheses of the work. 4. Findings a. the presentation of evidence/data b. what conclusions are drawn from the findings? Theory must be applied and explain the practice. Don’t show the gap between theory and practice. 5. Appendices a. List of sources, references Students should demonstrate initiative and are strongly encouraged to explore readings beyond the course bibliography, and to draw on their own experience, fieldwork etc. The argument of the analytical research note must engage with anthropological theory, and points must be substantiated with ethnographic evidence (especially in case of the pursuit of 9 or 10). The final the research analytical note (approx. 3000 words per each student in the group, including bibliography but excluding the appendices) needs to be submitted a week after the final session.
Interim Assessment
- 2022/2023 2nd module0.65 * Analytical Research note (Final Essay) + 0.1 * Workshop attendance and activities + 0.075 * Online-lecture (home assignments)
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