SUSTAINABILITY 2: SUSTAINABILITY AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS

Second course of Ca' Foscari International College's Minor programme in 'Sustainability', building on the introduction to sustainability and systems thinking (SUS1) and laying the bases for the following courses.

GENERAL OBJECTIVE:
Provide students with tools and motivation to think critically about and analyse global environmental politics, address multiple aspects of sustainability, and conceive of potential strategies for the socio-environmental challenges ahead

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES:
Reflect critically on mainstream environmental policies
Master the main narratives of sustainability and environmental politics
Provide new concepts and stimulate the development of new tools to analyse current politics and policies
Develop basic research methodology for environmental and social studies

Fruitful completion of the course SUS 1 'Sustainability'.

1) Introduction
Environment and Sustainability; archaeology, history and varieties of an idea

2) Sustainability, Biophysical Limits, Multiple Crises

3) Political Ecology, Socio-environmental Justice and Environmental Racism

4) Environmental Conflicts and Health
with a field visit to one site of environmental conflict

5) Ecofeminism and Decolonial Critique to Growth and Capitalism

6) Degrowth and Systemic Transformations and Alternatives
with guest lecture from an international scholar

7) Environmental politics in the news: mainstream institutional and corporate plans, and alternatives to them

Commoner (1971), The Closing Circle: Nature, Man, and Technology.
Escobar, A. (1994 or 2011 edition) Encountering Development.
Kothari et al. (2018), Pluriverse. A Post-Development Dictionary
Ferdinand (2021), A Decolonial Ecology.
Martínez Alier, J. (2002) The Environmentalism of the Poor
Martínez Alier, J. (2023) Land, Water, Air and Freedom. The Making of World Movements for Environmental Justice
Guha, R. and Martínez Alier, J. (1997) Varieties of Environmentalism. Essays North and South
Della Porta, D. and Diani, M. (2020) Social Movements, An Introduction
Iovino S. (2016), Ecocriticism and Italy
Robbins Peet, P. and Watts M. (eds). 2010. Global Political Ecology
Peluso, N.L., Watts, M. (de) (2001) Violent environments

Oral presentations
Written assignments
Active participation and interaction capacity
Group discussions and role-play

written and oral

20% overall active engagement in lectures, seminars, and group exercises
20% written assignments
20% oral presentation
40% final paper, related discussion, oral answers to general questions

Lectures; interactive keynote guest lectures; walking lectures; participatory learning and teaching; mixed inductive/deductive approach; case-based foci; assignments, reading, writing, reporting; group discussion

One class will take place at an environmental conflict site in Slovenia. Students will be kindly asked to arrange their travel to the nearest train station. Detailed information will be provided on the first day of lessons to facilitate logistical organization well in advance.

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Climate change and energy" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development