Do humans shape the environment, or do our environments shape us? Using this double-sided question as our guide, this class will introduce students to the ways that anthropologists have examined humankind’s dynamic relationship with the natural world. On the one hand, humans shape the environment when economies and value systems influence not only how our landscapes look, but also how we think they should look. Indeed, what counts as “nature” and as “natural” in the first place differs between societies, across time, and in relation to power. On the other hand, ecological catastrophes increasingly force people to adapt to situations beyond their control. Because different communities are subjected to environmental degradation differentially, the environment also becomes a primary site where humans come to understand themselves by race, ethnicity, gender, and sex. Given these two sides, how do we understand the links between culture, adaptation, and environment?
In exploring these topics, this course will provide students with a conceptual framework to engage many pressing issues, including food industrialization, biodiversity, indigenous rights, sustainability and development, natural resource use, biotechnology, war, toxicity and waste management, and climate change. Drawing on multimedia examples from around the world, our goal is to interrupt taken-for-granted presumptions in the ways these issues are commonly discussed.