Dr Kasia Paprocki

This course is available on the BA in Geography, BSc in Economic History and Geography, BSc in Environment and Development, BSc in Environment and Sustainable Development, BSc in Environment and Sustainable Development with Economics, BSc in Environmental Policy with Economics and BSc in Geography with Economics. This course is available as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit and to General Course students.

This course explores the complex relationships between development, poverty and the environment. It covers a range of important natural resource and environmental issues, and provides students with the necessary tools to critically evaluate how these issues have been addressed by different stakeholders and at different levels of governance. Using concepts and analytical tools grounded in political ecology and critical development studies, the course examines several topics, including: the politics of sustainable development; environmental governance and tenure; and critical resource issues.

This course involves one lecture period and one class period per week during Autumn Term. The lecturer will provide short "flipped classroom" recorded lecture content at the beginning of the week, and students will participate in discussions and other learning activities during the designated lecture period. Note that these lecture periods will not be recorded, so students will be expected to attend both lectures and weekly classes.

This course takes place in Autumn Term only. It includes a reading week in Week 6.

Students will be expected to produce one formative essay plan in the Autumn Term.

Li, T (2007) The Will to Improve, Durham: Duke University Press.

Robbins, P (2012) Political Ecology: A Critical Introduction, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

West, P (2006) Conservation is Our Government Now: The Politics of Ecology in Papua New Guinea. Durham: Duke University Press.

Curley, A (2021) "Resources is just another word for colonialism." In M. Himley, E. Havice, & G. Valdivia (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Critical Resource Geography (pp. 79-89). London: Routledge.

Sealey-Huggins, L. (2018) "'The Climate Crisis is a Racist Crisis': Structural Racism, Inequality and Climate Change." In A. Johnson, R. Joseph-Salisbury, & B. Kamunge (Eds.), The Fire Now: Anti-Racist Scholarship in Times of Explicit Racial Violence (pp. 99-113). London: Zed Books.

Essay (100%, 3000 words) in the AT.