Resistance and Resilience of Rural Structures to Global Processes

Struggles of Power and Knowledge: Expressions of Resistance and Resilience

Roberto Sanchez-Rodriguez

ES 291 – Fall Quarter 2001 Syllabus

Meeting Day/Time/Location: Wednesday, 1-3 PM, rm. 489 NS II

#96660

This course builds from a spring 2001 seminar called ‘Resistance and Resilience of Rural Structures to Global Processes’. The spring course followed a path through ‘Classical Agrarian Political Economy and Critiques’ and ‘Livelihood Approaches to Development’ to ‘Environmental Governance and Practice’. This fall course will consist of a survey of readings covering theories, foundations, and approaches to notions of power and knowledge, and then overlay questions of state intervention and mass media analyses to the processes, all within the context of environmental issues. Overall, the readings and discussions in this course seek to provide a framework to the study of changes in societies and their linkages to global processes. The course also focuses on local actions to improve resilience and resistance to those global processes. The final week will consist of a synthesis of the readings and analysis the ideological and pragmatic similarities and contradictions they raise for sustainable development.

Week 1 ~ Sept. 26

Introduction, syllabus dispersal, general overview.

PART I: Theories and Foundations

Week 2 ~ Oct. 3

Foucault, M. (1984). Space, Knowledge and Power. The Foucault Reader. P. Rabinow. New York, Pantheon Books.

Cowen, M. and R. Shenton (1995). The Invention of Development. Power and Development. J. Crush. London, Routledge.

Foucault, M. (1984). Panopticism. The Foucault Reader. P. Rabinow. New York, Pantheon Books.

Week 3 ~ Oct. 10

Adams, W. M. (1995). Green Development Theory? Power and Development. J. Crush. London, Routledge.

Harvey, D. (1990). Part III The Experience of Space and Time. The Condition of Postmodernity. Oxford, Blackwell Publishers: 201-240.

Week 4 ~ Oct. 17

Bridge, G. (1997). “Mapping the Terrain of Time-Space Compression: Power Networks in Everyday Life.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 15: 611-626.

Murdoch, J. (1997a). “Inhuman/Nonhuman/Human: Actor-Network Theory and the Prospects for a Nondualistic and Symmetrical Perspective on Nature and Society.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 15: 731-756.

Murdoch, J. (1997b). “Towards a Geography of Heterogeneous Associations.” Progress in Human Geography 21: 321-337.

PART II: Approaches to Power, Knowledge, Science, and Development

Week 5 ~ Oct. 24

Taylor, P. and F. Buttel (1992). “How Do We Know We Have Global Environmental Problems?: Science and the Globalization of Environmental Discourse.” Geoforum 23(3): 405-416.

Johnson, H. and G. Wilson (2000). “Biting the Bullet: Civil Society, Social Learning and the Transformation of Local Governance.” World Development 28(11): 1891-1906.

Week 6 ~ Oct. 31

Hewitt, K. (1995). Sustainable Disasters? Power and Development. J. Crush. London, Routledge.

Nuijten, M. (1992). Local Organization as Organizing Practices. Battlefields of Knowledge. N. Long and A. Long. London, Routledge.

Villareal, M. (1992). The Poverty of Practice. Battlefields of Knowledge. N. Long and A. Long. London, Routledge.

Week 7 ~ Nov. 7

Demeritt, D. (1998). Science, Social Constructivism and Nature. Remaking Realities: Nature at the Millenium. G. Braun and N. Castree: 173-193.

Yapa, L. (1996). “What Causes Poverty: A Postmodern View.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 86: 707-728.

Shrestha, N. (1996). “On ‘What Causes Poverty? A Postmodern View.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 86: 709-722.

Fortmann, L(1995). “Talking Claims: Discursive Strategies in Contesting Poverty.” World Development 23(6): 1053-1063.

PART III: Power, Knowledge and the Role of the State

Week 8 ~ Nov. 14

Scott, J. C. (1998). Introduction. Seeing Like a State.

Jenkins, T. N. (2000). “Putting Postmodernity Into Practice: Endogenous Development and the Role of Traditional Cultures in the Rural Development of Marginal Regions.” Ecological Economics 34: 301-314.

PART IV: Power, Knowledge and the Role of the Mass Media

Week 9 ~ Nov. 21

Cottle, S. (2000). TV News, Lay Voices and the Visualisation of Environmental Risks. Environmental Risks and the Media. S. Allan, B. Adam and C. Carter. London, Routledge.

Szerszynski, B. and M. Toogood (2000). Global Citizenship, the Environment and the Media. Environmental Risks and the Media. S. Allan, B. Adam and C. Carter. London, Routledge.

PART IV: Resistance and Resilience: Viable Alternative Visions?

Week 10 ~ Nov. 28

Escobar, A. (1995). Imagining a Post-Development Era. Power and Development. J. Crush. London, Routledge.

Kelly, P. M., Adger, W.N. (2000). “Theory and practice in assessing vulnerability to climate change and facilitating adaptation.” Climatic Change 47: 325-352.

Shrestha, N. (1995). Becoming a Development Category. Power and Development. J. Crush. London, Routledge.

PART IV: Power, Knowledge, and the State of the International and Domestic

Environment; Final Discussion and Synthesis

The final discussion will explore the threads connecting these readings, along with their contradictions. Additionally, an analysis of assembled working definitions for resistance and resilience in these contexts will be undertaken.

This final discussion will also investigate the state of the international and domestic environment in the readings on struggles of power and knowledge and expressions of resistance and resilience. This will be explored primarily through a developed case-study discussion: the United States Presidency vis a vis Global Environmental Issues in the context of the Kyoto Protocol. We will draw from contemporary issues to discuss how the aforementioned intersections manifest in impacts on the global citizenry.