Anthropology 229 - Africa and the Environment

In Western discourses, African environments are defined by violence, famine, and degradation symptoms of African cultures that resist Western values such as private property, democracy, and environmentalism. This course encourages students to think critically about such portrayals by learning about specific environments in Africa and how humans have interacted with them across time. The syllabus is anchored in cultural anthropology, but includes units on human evolution, the origins and spread of pastoralism, the history of colonial conservation science, and more. Topics covered include gender, race, land grabbing, indigenous knowledge, the commons, the cattle complex, desertification, oil, dams, and nationalism.