RE-NATURING THE CITY LOOKING AT THE CITY FROM THE LENS OF POLITICAL ECOLOGY

Course Objectives: The course will teach students to look into the city as an ecological formation. It will redefine the ecological problems of the city as political problems and will explore the political, economic, and social factors that shape these problems. The course will particularly focus on gender, race, and class as significant determinants that change the experience of the ecological challenges in the city.

Course Content: This course analyzes the city from the perspective of political ecology. Political ecology is an interdisciplinary framework to understand and question the political, economic, and social factors that lead to ecological degradation and transformation. Political ecology literature redefines ecological problems as political problems. This course addresses some of the foundational concepts and key themes of political ecology research pertaining to land, property, agriculture, urban space, climate change, extractive industries, and conservation. It also looks into the ways gender and race-based inequalities relate to the drivers and consequences of ecological change and explores the key contemporary debates over social and ecological change.