Politics of Landscapes 3102-FPOL
Human populations have engaged in a variety of processes in organizing space or altering the landscape around them for a diversity of purposes, including subsistence, economic, social, political, and religious undertakings. People often perceive, protect, and shape the land in the course of symbolic processes engaging with their sense of place. In this sense, all human experience is spatialized, and landscapes (both architectural and 'natural') encompass the intersection of the social, the political, and the material. This course examines the concepts of landscape and space in Anthropology. Its goal is to provide students with a foundation in current landscape theory and interpretation. We will cover a wide range of topics intersecting with landscape, including social order, political landscapes, urban landscapes, 'natural' places, and memory. Throughout the course ethnographic works will be examined which illustrate the infusion of power in space, the contested nature of landscape, and the way in which landscapes both feed into and are produced by the complex plays of power and resistance at overlapping levels.
Type of course
Course coordinators
Learning outcomes
Upon completion of this course, the student will be able to:
1. Discuss a range of anthropological data used to study landscapes;
2. Evaluate how anthropologists study the concept of space and landscapes;
3. Critically examine culturally and environmentally derived landscapes and human uses of space;
4. Achieve a B2+ level of English.
Assessment criteria
Evaluation is based on participation in class discussions, a class presentation, and a final (oral) exam.
Bibliography
Basso, Keith (1996). Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language among the Western Apache. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press.
Cruikshank, Julie (2005). Do Glaciers Listen? Local Knowledge, Colonial Encounters, and Social Imagination. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.
Heatherington, Tracey (2010): Wild Sardinia: Indigeneity and the Global Dreamtimes of Environmentalism. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.
Li, Tania (2007). The Will to Improve: Governmentality, Development, and the Practice of Politics. Durham, NC. Duke University Press.
Vaccaro, Ismael (2006). 'Postindustrial Valleys: The Pyrenees as a Reinvented Landscape.' Social Anthropology 14(3):361-376.
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: