WGST/ESST 2013 Environmental Justice and Equity
This course examines the relationship between nature and social power. Whose bodies accumulate toxic chemicals at home or at work? Who is benefiting from the oil-based economy and who is being harmed? Why are poor people more vulnerable to natural disasters? Who has the power to stop climate change and how? In this class, we examine how interlocking structures of gender, race, class, and colonialism shape who has access to environmental benefits (e.g., natural resources, food, safety) and who is exposed to environmental harms (e.g., disease, contamination, disasters). The course begins from the perspective that neither structures of social difference (e.g., gender, race, class) nor the environment are “natural.” Rather, from an intersectional feminist perspective, the course explores how environment and society produce each other in ways that are unequal and laden with social power. Through readings, lectures, discussion, and assignments, we will investigate a range of pressing environmental issues that range in scale from the bodily (e.g., disease and contamination) to the globe (e.g., climate change). We will also explore the diverse ways communities have resisted environmental injustice and sought to build alternative futures.
Learning Opportunities
By the end of the course students will be able to:
- Explain how environment and environmental problems shape and are shaped by power relations
- Use an intersectional feminist analysis
- Explain real-world environmental justice issues in Nova Scotia, Canada, and globally
- Effectively work across difference in perspective and experience to contribute to a stimulating and thoughtful classroom environment
- Effectively work collectively in small groups to develop, research, produce, and present a collaborative project
- Read critically at a level higher than when they entered the course.