2020/2021
Culture, nature and Development
Code: 101258 ECTS Credits: 6| Degree | Type | Year | Semester |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2500256 Social and Cultural Anthropology | FB | 1 | 2 |
The proposed teaching and assessment methodology that appear in the guide may be subject to changes as a result of the restrictions to face-to-face class attendance imposed by the health authorities.
Contact
- Name:
- Silvia Graciela Álvarez Litben
- Email:
- Silvia.Alvarez@uab.cat
Use of Languages
- Principal working language:
- spanish (spa)
- Some groups entirely in English:
- No
- Some groups entirely in Catalan:
- Yes
- Some groups entirely in Spanish:
- Yes
Teachers
- Irina Casado Aijón
Prerequisites
It is recommended that students have studied the Basic Concepts in Anthropology of the First Semester
Objectives and Contextualisation
This first year course is part of "Fields of Intervention of Anthropology", a field specialized in culture and environment that will allow the student to acquire competences in this professional field. The subject offers training that is considered basic for studying Anthropology. This course maintains links with others such as Ethnographic Approach to Cultural Diversity, Ethnographic Texts and Audiovisuals, Anthropology and Sociocultural Intervention, Sociocultural Anthropology, Basic Concepts, Geographical Visions of the World. In the fourth year it is linked to subjects such as Development and Sustainability, Local Knowledge and Natural Resources Management and Human Ecology.
The Descriptor contemplates the following aspects: comparative study of conceptualizations of nature. Anthropology focused on analysis and environmental intervention. Critical approach to practices towards nature and development models.
The training objectives are as follows:
Ask yourself questions about the relationship between society and nature over time and in different cultures.
Express comparative views between the Western Society and the so-called "Ethnographic Societies". Analyze texts, documents, exhibitions and audiovisuals considered as a whole.
Competences
- Apprehending cultural diversity through ethnography and critically assessing ethnographic materials as knowledge of local contexts and as a proposal of theoretical models.
- Developing critical thinking and reasoning and communicating them effectively both in your own and other languages.
- Students must be capable of collecting and interpreting relevant data (usually within their area of study) in order to make statements that reflect social, scientific or ethical relevant issues.
- Students must have and understand knowledge of an area of study built on the basis of general secondary education, and while it relies on some advanced textbooks it also includes some aspects coming from the forefront of its field of study.
Learning Outcomes
- Identifying main and supporting ideas and expressing them with linguistic correctness.
- Identifying the theories about human species in their relation to society and culture production.
- Identifying the various relationship processes between human populations and their environment.
- Interpreting the relationships between different societies and cultures by applying the specific notions of Anthropology.
- Interpreting today's main events from physical, economic, social and cultural diversity.
- Knowing and understanding the culture's influence in the various institutional systems of environmental intervention.
- Recognising the cultural nature of nature and society conceptualizations.
Content
1. Anthropology and nature. The articulation of nature and culture to ethnographic descriptions with a gender perspective. Ecosystems, cultural significance and resource management. Nature-culture dichotomy or negotiation between living beings? Conceptual treatment of nature and culture in anthropology: evolutionism to structuralism and environmental ecology.
2. The paradigm of development. Origin, proposals and practices. Models of nature as social constructs in the framework of power relations: from colonialism to political ecology. Environmental intervention and development models: causes and consequences. Rights of nature
3. Concepts to build: environment, cultural landscape, natural heritage, eco-development, etnodevelopment, bioculture, food security, suma kawsay or good living, degrowth, gross inner happiness.
Methodology
During the course they will be done:
Theoretical classes and practices directed by the teacher. Search for documentation, reading texts, writing essays. Written assessment
This by: Theoretical and practical classes with ICT support and group debate. Presentation of practical experiences of socio-cultural and environmental intervention. Viewing and discussing audio-visuals and texts based on a guide for analysis. Reading, analysis and writing of written works.
Activities
| Title | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type: Directed | |||
| Theoretical classes and documentary viewings. Study of texts, preparation of works and debates, organization and class notes. | 50 | 2 | 6, 3, 1, 2, 5, 4, 7 |
| Type: Supervised | |||
| Debates in the class of texts, documentaries, cases of the contemporary world. | 25 | 1 | 6, 3, 1, 2, 5, 4, 7 |
| Type: Autonomous | |||
| Reading, analysis, criticism of texts and documentaries in the classroom, preparation of debate, writing of works. | 75 | 3 | 6, 3, 1, 2, 5, 4, 7 |
Assessment
The development of five individual and group works will have a value of 30% and 10% of participation, total 40%. A final work in group 20% by script and elaboration, and 10% of oral presentation, total 30%. Written tests based on classes, videos will have a value of 30%. At the time of completion of each evaluation activity, the procedure and date of review of the qualifications will be informed.
To pass the subject it is necessary to approve 70% of the programmed activities. All suspended tests may be recovered in the re-evaluation. It is considered "Not Evaluable" that student who has not submitted 2/3 parts (60%) of the written tests, without just cause.
In the event of a student committing any irregularity that may lead to a significant variation in the grade awarded to an assessment activity, the student will be given a zero for this activity, regardless of any disciplinary process that may take place. In the event of several irregularities in assessment activities of the same subject, the student will be given a zero as the final grade for this subject.
In the event that tests or exams cannot be taken onsite, they will be adapted to an online format made available through the UAB’s virtual tools (original weighting will be maintained). Homework, activities and class participation will be carried out through forums, wikis and/or discussion on Teams, etc. Lecturers will ensure that students are able to access these virtual tools, or will offer them feasible alternatives.
Assessment Activities
| Title | Weighting | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The elaboration of group work. | 30 | 0 | 0 | 3, 1, 5, 4, 7 |
| The elaboration of individual and group work. | 40 | 0 | 0 | 6, 3, 1, 2, 5, 4, 7 |
| Written tests based on classes, and videos. | 30 | 0 | 0 | 3, 1, 5, 7 |
Bibliography
Balée, William,
1989 La cultura dels boscos de l’Amazònia, Avenços en botánica conómica 7: 1-21.
Buxó, M.J. Cultura y ecología en las sociedades primitivas. Mitrea. Barcelona, 1983
Escobar, Arturo y Álvaro Pedrosa
1996 Conclusión: Globalización, posdesarrollo y pluriculturalismo, en: Pacífico ¿Desarrollo o diversidad? Estado, capital y movimientos sociales en el Pacífico colombiano. Arturo Escobar y Álvaro Pedrosa (invs.). Cerec y Ecofondo. Santafé de Bogota.
Jackson, Jane
1996 ¿Existe una manera de hablar sobre hacer cultura sin hacer enemigos?, en: F. Santos Granero (comp), Globalización y cambio en la Amazonía indígena, Vol. I, Flacso-Biblioteca Abya-Yala Nº37, Quito, pp.439-472.
Juliano, D., “Un Dios a nuestra imagen y semejanza: el mito del buen colonizador”, en: V Centenario del descubrimiento: historia de un genocidio, Langaiak, 1988 (11):17-27.
Kottak, Conrad Phillip Antropología cultural, McGraw Hill, undécima edición, 2006.
Latouche, Serge
2009 Manifiesto de la Red por el Postdesarrollo, en: Decrecimiento y posdesarrollo. El pensamiento creativo contra la economía del absurdo, El Viejo Topo, Barcelona.
Leff, E.
2002 Saber ambiental: Sustentabilidad, racionalidad, complejidad, poder. Siglo XXI
Llistar Bosch, David
2009 Anticooperación ambiental y deuda ecológica, en: Anticooperación. Interferencias Norte-Sur. Los problemas del Sur no se resuelven con más Ayuda internacional. Icaria 309 Antrazyt Relaciones Norte-Sur, Barcelona 2009.
Andreu Viola (comp.) Antropología del Desarrollo. Teorías y estudios etnográficos en America Latina, Paidos eds, Barcelona.