NRE 501.087 Justice Issues in Conservation and Sustainability
Rebecca Hardin
Fri 10-1pm

This course explores concepts of "conservation justice."  It will examine a series of in depth cases (monographs and articles)  that range from royal game reserves through colonial concessions to community based conservation, and recent hybrid governance by public/private/community partnerships. Readings will include works by E.P. Thompson on poaching controls in England, history and anthropology of trophy hunting and touring in reserves, as well as social analysis of more contemporary spaces such as City Parks, National Parks or Forests, and new Transborder Protected Areas. Habitats will range from coastal and marine contexts to inland wildlife ranches, forest parcels, and mountain ranges. We will cover one case a week, triangulating where possible through both film and text,  and students will be required to write responses to the cases for approximately ten weeks of the semester (with a reprieve for the other two or three weeks).  There will also be a final course paper or project that applies course concepts for considering economic and ethical dimensions of social inequalities that result from  conservation practices  across cultures and historical epochs. We'll cover concepts that range from the territorial and formally political (such as forced migration or formal resistance) to more social and organizational (such as marginality or alienation, as they relate to resource use transformation and shape the management of various kinds of conservation personnel who have different educational or cultural backgrounds).  Enrollment limited to 30.