Special Topics in Environmental Policy and Culture (390-0-25)
Topic
Environmental Justice in Modern South Asia
Instructors
Chandana Anusha
Meeting Info
Kresge Centennial Hall 2-339: Tues, Thurs 9:30AM - 10:50AM
Overview of class
Environmental Justice in Modern South Asia is an undergraduate class on the unequal experiences and effects of environmental change in South Asia, drawing primarily on case studies from India. Since at least the early 1990s, rapid economic growth, massive infrastructural projects, democratic transformations and global threats of climate change, have characterized the South Asian region. Such political, economic, and ecological processes come together to worsen the lives and livelihoods of marginalized people typically. They tend to intensify their vulnerability to environmental degradation, with historical structures of inclusion and exclusion profoundly shaping how natural resources are accessed and distributed. While the regional focus is on South Asia, at the heart of this course is a broader concern that environmental questions are always questions of equality and social justice.
The class will examine how issues of justice and nature are framed within law and official policy debates, within social movements and right-based struggles, as well as within people's moral imaginations and everyday lives. The following questions will guide the class:
• What environmental problems arose in South Asia through accelerated economic development across the 20th century and early 21st century?
• Who suffered the most, why, and how were they affected, socially, culturally, and materially?
• What strategies for justice and sustainability emerged?
• How is environmental justice understood across activists, policymakers, and ordinary people whose lives are most in danger?
Class Attributes
Social and Behavioral Science Foundational Discipl