ENVIRONMENTAL ANTHROPOLOGY 2

The course is primarily addressed to students of the Master Degree in Environmental Humanities who have already attended 'Environmental Anthropology 1, mod.1 and 2. The participation of students of other programmes can be authorised upon agreement with the instructors.

The course draws on the previous two modules of ‘Environmental Anthropology’. These have provided the students with the necessary skills to look at the relationship between human beings, society, and the environment through the perspective of social and cultural anthropology and a basic understanding of ethnography. This course focuses on a specific cultural dimension, that of science & technology, analyzing its role in creating discourses, practices and imaginaries that craft ways of thinking at the environment and nature-culture interactions. In so doing, the relationship, overlap and differences between social sciences and natural sciences will be examined too, equipping students with the conceptual tools and terminology for a productive dialogue and collaboration between these two forms of knowledge. Through group and individual presentations, students will enhance their ability for collective work, critical and independent thinking.

Students are required to have already attended 'Environmental Anthropology 1, mod.1 and 2

Science and technology are increasingly crucial in configuring the ecosystems we inhabit, the definition of 'life' and the relationship between humans and non-humans. Therefore, an analysis of environmental issues must include an analysis of technoscience. The course will start by reviewing the socio-anthropological postmodern debate about the relationship between nature and culture, analysing specific authors who have started to extend that debate in the realm of science and technology. In this initial part, we will discuss how concepts such as ‘realism’ and ‘objectivity’ have been reworked by socio-anthropological theory. In the second part of the course, we will analyse ethnographic case studies about the technoscientific study of the microbes/microbiome/probiotics and its environmental connections. This will allow us to critically assess the most recent socio-anthropological orientations about the relationship between nature and culture (post-humanism, ontological turn, multispecies ethnography), discussing their practical, ethical and political consequences in the technoscientific and environmental realms. The third part of the course will be devoted to students’ presentation of case studies, preliminarily agreed with the instructor.

Compulsory:
• Latour, B. 2013. Cogitamus. Sei lettere sull'umanesimo scientifico. Bologna: Il Mulino.
There is a French version. Alternatively, in English: Latour, B. 1993. We have never been modern. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press or Latour, B. 1999. Pandora's hope. Essays on the reality of science studies. Cambridge, Massachusset and London: Harvard University Press)
• Introduction of: Lorimer, J. 2020. The Probiotic Planet: Using Life to Manage Life. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
• Paxson, H., and S. Helmreich. 2014. The perils and promises of microbial abundance: Novel natures and model ecosystems, from artisanal cheese to alien seas. Social Studies of Science 44 (2):165-193.
Non-compulsory (the list may be expanded at the beginning of the semester):
• Barad, K. 2007. Meeting the universe halfway. Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Durham: Duke University Press.
• Bird Rose, D. 2011. Wild Dog Dreaming: Love and Extinction. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.
• Daston, L., and P. Galison. 2010. Objectivity. New York: Zone Books.
• Lorimer, J. 2020. The Probiotic Planet: Using Life to Manage Life. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
• Lyons, K.M. 2020. Vital Decomposition: Soil Practitioners and Life Politics: Duke University Press.
• Povinelli, E.A. 2016. Geontologies. A Requiem to Late Liberalism. Durham and London: Duke University Press.
• Raffaetà, R. 2020. Antropologia dei microbi. Come la metagenomica sta riconfigurando l'umano e la salute. Roma: CISU.

Attendance is not mandatory, but it determines the assessment methods:
A) Attending students: the final grade will include 1) the level of involvement and participation in classes. Attending students are expected to follow and participate in classes, intervening and animating the debate on the topics under consideration; 2) the quality of a group presentation. Small-groups of students will present a case study suggested by the instructor, encouraging questions and generating a discussion among colleagues; 3) the appropriateness of contents and language of a final written essay (between 4.000 and 6.000 words) aimed at exploring in depth and critically (that is: combining further references) a topic covered in the course.
B) Non-attending students: the final grade will include 1) the appropriateness of contents and language of a written essay (between 9.000 and 10.000 words) aimed at exploring in depth and critically (that is: combining further references) all the ‘compulsory’ publications and one selected from the non-compulsory ones.
To define yourself as 'attending', you must not miss more than 4 lessons out of the 15 scheduled, participate in class discussions of the assigned texts and partecipate in the group presentation of the final part of the course.

The course is taught through participative lectures, class discussion of selected articles and group presentations.

English

written and oral

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Natural capital and environmental quality" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development