3.0

credits

Average Course Rating

Anthropology, the study of humans and their engagement with the environment, depends on the use of methods and theories to provide insight into human adaptation and resilience to environmental changes. In order to understand the present environmental crisis, we must analyze the sociocultural factors that have led us to this point and consider how they are influenced by various contexts. Applying the theories of cultural materialism, symbolic anthropology, and socioecology, students will explore diverse economic practices, including hunting and gathering, horticulture, aquaculture, agriculture, and pastoralism in a range of geographical settings, both in US and globally. Course activities and assignments will investigate how human belief systems relate to specific environments and are integrated into rituals and arts. Considering current socioecological frameworks, such as deep ecology, ecological feminism, and political ecology, students will explore how Western environmental perspectives overlap with or are disconnected from the local ecological knowledge developed by indigenous societies. To provide training in the application of environmental anthropology frameworks and tools, students will conduct a fieldwork project unique to their interests and regions.