Global Political Ecology: Colonialism, Capitalism, and Climate Change
3.0
creditsAverage Course Rating
The ecological crisis currently underway calls into question political theories that emphasize concern with the ‘human’ above all else. Yet this is the hallmark of humanist political thought, encompassing notions of freedom, equality, property, knowledge, agency, time, and so on. This course rethinks ‘politics’ (theory and modes of action) from the more-than-human perspective of political ecology in conjunction with Black, Indigenous, feminist, and postcolonial thought. We will challenge political concepts that justify the domination of nature for human flourishing, and consequently question prevalent notions of what counts as ‘human’ and what as ‘nature’. We will situate anthropocentric politics within histories of capitalism and colonialism and explore the interconnections between human and non-human domination through such processes as ecological imperialism, racial capitalism, and environmental racism. Toward the end of the course, we will explore recent scholarship on modes of political action suitable for building alternate, just futures for all forms of life in a more-than-human world.