ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY OF WORK

The course is part of the Interdisciplinary Activities (Environmental History track) [C] of the Master's degree Programme in Environmental Humanities. It aims at exploring the intrinsic link between nature and labour, the ways in which human labour has transformed and been transformed by the environment, and the environmental discourses and policies of the labour movement. More widely, it aims to open up a conversation between Environmental and Labour studies.

Knowledge and Understanding
- knowledge of the main issues and methods of Labour History and Environmental History
- knowledge of the impact of the Industrial Revolution over environment and human health
- understanding the role of industrial labour in changing the relationship between human beings and natural environment
- understanding the fallouts over workers and communities of the environmental degradation caused by industry

Ability to apply Knowledge and Understanding
- ability to identify a common ground between Labour History and Environmental History
- ability to recognize the complexity of the relation between industrial production, employment and the protection of the environment
- ability to critically evaluate the causes of environmental conflicts provoked by industrial activities

Communication Skills
- ability to participate in group discussion adopting a suitable terminology and respecting the opinions of others
- ability to draw on personal experiences to enrich the group discussion

Learning Skills
- ability to take part in interactive and collaborative activities on the Moodle platform
- ability to increase the bibliography through personal research

This course is an elective course offered to students enrolled in the Master Degree in the Environmental Humanities. No prior background in the subject is required.

The course will analyse the relationship between industry and the environment in the history of contemporary Italy, with particular attention to the point of view of workers and their organisations. Awareness of the environmental problems of industrial development grew out of the deterioration of workers' health, which was at the centre of the cycle of struggles for health and safety at work in the 1960s and 1970s. During the "ecological spring", the labour movement participated in the emergence of a wide range of environmental issues. Since then, the issue of the compatibility/connection between work, health and the environment has crossed the labour movement, giving rise to conflicts and divisions, but also to important experiences of mobilisation, cultural growth and social engagement. The complexity of this confrontation and the specificity of environmental conflicts will be explored through a series of case studies from the 1970s to the present, between industrialisation, deindustrialisation and their toxic legacies, taking into account the many actors involved (workers, trade unions, citizens, economic actors, political and legal institutions). Concepts such as the "jobs vs. environment dilemma", "environmental occupational blackmail", "working-class environmentalism", "just transition" and "environmental justice" will then be placed in a precise historical context. The aim of the course is to bring the perspectives of Labour History, Environmental History and Political Ecology into dialogue, in order to challenge the idea of an antinomy between labour and the environment and to postulate instead the urgency of an alliance between these fundamental dimensions of life.

Nora Räthzel, Dimitris Stevis, David Uzzell, The Palgrave Handbook of Environmental Labour Studies, Palgrave-MacMillan 2021

Brian K. Obach, Labor and the Environmental Movement: The Quest for Common Ground, The MIT Press 2004

Richard White, “Are You an Environmentalist or Do You Work for a Living?”: Work and Nature, in Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, ed. by William Cronon, W.W. Norton 1996, pp. 171-185

Janis Bailey and Ross Gwyther, Red and Green: Towards a Cross-Fertilisation of Labour and Environmental History, «Labour History», n. 99, 2010, pp. 1-16

Stefania Barca, Bread and Poison. The Story of Labor Environmentalism in Italy, 1968-1998, in Christopher Sellers and Joseph Malling (eds), Dangerous Trade. Histories of Industrial Hazards across a Globalizing World, Temple University Press 2012, pp. 126-139

Stefania Barca, Laboring the earth. Transnational reflections on the environmental history of work, «Environmental History», vol. 19, n. 1, 2014, pp. 3-27

Mauro Diani, Green Networks. A Structural Analysis of the Italian Environmental Movement, Edinburgh University Press 1995

Gabriella Corona, A Short Environmental History of Italy: Variety and Vulnerability, White Horse Press 2017

Enrico Cesaretti, Roberta Biasillo, Damiano Benvegnú, Environmental Humanities and Italy, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Environmental Science (2023, March 22) https://oxfordre.com/environmentalscience/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199389414.001.0001/acrefore-9780199389414-e-809

Students are expected to write an original paper (3000/5000 words) critically developing the topics of the course (Labour/Environment relationship). The widening of methodological perspectives is warmly encouraged. The paper has to be submitted to the instructor at least 10 days before the exam.
The final exam will consist of a discussion starting from the written essay and later expanding to cover other aspects of students’ preparation, in order to have a full assessment of the knowledge and abilities they have learned through the course.

Lectures and group discussion; forums and other collaborative activities in the Moodle platform. Class participation is warmly encouraged!

English

oral

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Circular economy, innovation, work" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development