General
A distinguishing characteristic of my teaching is a focus on the environmental relations of local communities, while recognizing that it is equally important to understand the ways that such local systems are entwined with extra-local, national, and global markets, politics, and ideologies. I emphasize problematizing where necessary the orthodox approaches to conservation and development. My teaching encompass communities, local and national governments and NGOs, and addresses such topics as political ecological theory, indigenous environmental knowledge, natural disasters, agrarian society, and field methods. I strongly encourage my advisees to carry out their own independent summer research projects. I help them with their research, not the reverse. Most of my advisees carry out research internationally, have excellent records of obtaining support for this both within and beyond Yale, and have won numerous awards in recognition of their research achievements.
There is every year a critical mass of 30-50 students here working on these issues, which is perhaps unique in world and with a tradition of supportive versus competitive peer dynamics. I organize separate research labs for my doctoral students from YSE and other Yale departments and for all joint YSE/Anthropology doctoral students, and for my YSE Master’s students
Joint Doctoral Degree
I co-coordinate with my counterpart in Yale’s Department of Anthropology a combined doctoral degree between YSE and Anthropology, the only one of its kind in the country. The purpose of this program is to (1) combine the inter-disciplinary character and possibilities of YSE, especially in terms of bridging the social and natural sciences, with the disciplinary identity and strengths of the Anthropology Department; (2) combine the strengths in ecological and environmental studies of YSE with the social science strengths of the Anthropology Department; and (3) combine the emphasis within YSE on linking theory with policy and practice with the Anthropology Department’s strengths in theory. Graduates of this program can apply for teaching positions as anthropologists and/or environmental scientists, and they have the credentials to apply for policy-oriented positions with international institutions as well as academic positions in teaching and research. See YSE doctoral program page for further details.
Course Descriptions
FALL GLBL394a/ER&M 392a/EVST 422A/ANTH 409a/F&ES 422a, Climate and Society.
Seminar on the major traditions of thought and debate regarding climate, climate change, and society, drawing largely on the social sciences and humanities. Section I, overview of the field and course. Section II, disaster: the social origins of disastrous events; and the attribution of societal ‘collapse’ to extreme climatic events. Section III, causality: the ‘revelatory’ character of climatic perturbation; politics and the history of efforts to control weather/climate; and 19th-20th century theories of environmental determinism. Section IV, history and culture: the ancient tradition of explaining differences among people in terms of differences in climate; and differences between western and non-western views of climate. Section V, knowledge: the ethnographic study of folk knowledge of climate; and local views of climatic perturbation and change. Section VI, politics: the role of climatic change and perturbation in national politics; and the construction and contesting of global views of climate change. The goal of the course is to clarify the embedded historical, cultural, and political drivers of current climate change debates and discourses.
FALL F&ES 520a/ANTH 581a Power, Knowledge, and the Environment.
Introductory course on the social science of contemporary environmental and natural resource challenges, paying special attention to issues involving power and knowledge. Section I, overview of the field and course. Section II, disasters and environmental perturbation: readings relevant to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the social dimensions of disaster in general. Section III, issues of power and politics: river restoration in Nepal; the conceptual boundaries to resource systems, and the political ecology of water in Mumbai. Section IV, methods: the dynamics of working within development projects; and a multi-sited study of engineers, donors, and farmers in Egypt. Section V, local communities, resources, and (under)development: representing the poor, development discourse, and indigenous peoples and knowledge. Section VI: presentation of student projects. The goal of the course is to establish analytic distance from current conservation and development debates and discourses, so that when confronted with questions in this field, before answering we first ask: Is this the right question? What biases are embedded in it? What options does it implicitly foreclose? And what is the right question?
SPRING
ENV 796b/ANTH 796b Biopolitics of Human-Nonhuman Relations. Seminar on the “posthumanist” turn toward multispecies ethnography. Section I, introduction. Section II, perspectivism: the posthuman turn and multispecies ethnography; ecology and consciousness; and hunters and prey. Section III, entanglements: indigenous knowledge; Natural History; and conflicted views of conservation. Section IV, metaphors: the animal speaking for the human; and human and geological perturbation. Section V, student readings and presentations. Three hours lecture/seminar, with food provided, university regulations permitting. Enrollment capped.
FALL/SPRING
Environmental Anthropology Colloquy.
