751-2105-00L Political Ecology of Food and Agriculture
| Semester | Autumn Semester 2024 |
| Lecturers | J. Jacobi |
| Periodicity | yearly recurring course |
| Language of instruction | English |
| Comment | Number of participants limited to 25. All students wo register will be on the waiting list. A motivational application is required until 6 September: - presenting yourself and your studies - stating what topic in the field of Political Ecology that you are interested in - suggesting one paper to enrich the literature list for the course The selected students will be notified until 9 September. Questions regarding the application to johanna.jacobi@usys.ethz.ch. |
| Abstract | In this seminar, students are introduced to the multi-disciplinary field of political ecology to investigate human-environment relationships in food and agricultural systems. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | - Being able to provide an overview of the multi-disciplinary field of political ecology for investigating the relationships of humans to our environment - Learn to identify how power and interest influence social-ecological systems and to distinguish symptoms from systemic root causes - Become enabled to analyse complex and sometimes distant human-ecology relationships choosing from a broad range of methods | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | We will review common narratives in agri-food systems informed by a range of different theories and assisted by different analytical tools. For this purpose, we will start from different concepts of nature, power and interests, explore different ontologies and epistemologies through a set of topics such as hunger, obesity, agrobiodiversity and seeds, forests and deforestation, climate change and food production. Students will explain one concept in each course to the groups and practice their argumentative and writing skills in a final essay, applying the acquired tools to a topic of their choice. While specific inputs from external lecturers broaden our perspective, enough time for critical discussion and reflection will be granted. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Lecture notes | 20.9.2024 Introduction to political ecology 27.9.2024 Ontologies and epistemologies 4.10.2024 Climate justice and food systems 11.10.2024 Green revolution, industrial agriculture, and agroecology 18.10.2024 Conservation: Protecting what from what? 25.10.2024 Don't blame the rain: Water management in agriculture 1.11.2024 Deforestation: Root causes and alternatives 8.11.2024 Pandemics, syndemics and the food system 15.11.2024 Technology and the politics of knowledge 22.1.2024 Land-sharing, land-sparing 29.11.2024 Feminist (political) agroecology 6.12.2024 Food: Commons or commodity? 13.12.2024 Alternatives to sustainable development 20.12.2024 Final session (The Hunger Banquet) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Literature | Literaturelist provided on Moodle when the course starts. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Competencies |
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