GEOG018

Description

Section information text: "Development" is an international mandate for addressing structural inequality between the Global North and South. However, many institutions, private entities, NGOs and governments equate development with capitalist economic growth. The equation of capitalist growth with development has deepened global inequality and helps fuel global environmental crises. With the expansion of consumerism, the globalization of trade and travel and a world-wide dependency on fossil fuels, countries in the Global South not only have to navigate their own colonial legacies within an unequal world system but also the worst effects of climate change and widespread environmental degradation. This course will address the fundamental contradictions between economy and the environment that are at the heart of the world system. It will ask if it is possible to reclaim and refigure "development" to create a new platform for addressing global economic inequality and environmental health simultaneously. In this course we will read introductory texts on development and global environmental issues from geography and the social sciences, with special focus on the interdisciplinary subfields of critical development studies and political ecology.