Undergraduate Module Descriptor

ANT3097: Environment and Society

This module descriptor refers to the 2021/2 academic year.

Module Content

Syllabus Plan

Whilst the module’s precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover some or all of the following topics:

  • Introduction: Nature and the Environment in Science and Technology Studies
  • GM Foods
  • Climate Controversies and Consensus
  • Un/natural disaster
  • Scientific Uncertainties and Environmental Health
  • Wilderness Discourses and Social Natures
  • Environment and Social Justice
  • Making Species: Natives, Aliens and Endangered
  • Biodiversity: Concepts, Discourses and Practices
  • Experts, Laypeople and Other Animals
  • BSE Crisis – a British Example of “Risk Society”

Learning and Teaching

This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:

Scheduled Learning and Teaching ActivitiesGuided independent studyPlacement / study abroad
221280

...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:

CategoryHours of study timeDescription
Scheduled Learning and Teaching activity22The module will be taught a combination of lectures and seminar based discussions, meeting for two hours each week. It is essential that students complete all assigned readings before class and be prepared to discuss them in class.
Guided Independent study66Readings for seminars
Guided Independent study62Researching and writing the essay

Online Resources

This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).

Indicative Reading List

This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.

Yearley, Steven (2008), 'Nature and the Environment in Science and Technology Studies', in The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, Third Edition, eds. Edward J. Hackett, et al., Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 921-47.

Jasanoff, Sheila (2005), Designs on Nature; Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, Chapters 4&5.

Beck, U. (1992), Risk Society, London Sage

Gusterson, Hugh (2005), 'Decoding the Debate on 'Frankenfood'', in Making Threats: Biofears and Environmental Anxieties, eds. Betsy Hartmann, Banu Subramaniam, and Charles Zerner, Lanham, MA: Rowman and Littlefield, pp. 109-33.

Latour, Bruno (2007), 'A Plea for Earthly Sciences', keynote lecture for the annual meeting of the British Sociological Association, East London, April 2007.

Smith, Neil (2005), 'There's No Such Thing as a Natural Disaster', in Understanding Katrina: Perspectives from the Social Sciences. SSRC Forum, New York, NY: Social Science Research Council.

Murphy, Michelle (2006), Sick Building Syndrome and the Problem of Uncertainty: Environmental Politics, Technoscience, and Women Workers; Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Chapters 4 & 5.

Cronon, William (1995), 'The Trouble with Wilderness or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature', in Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature, ed. William Cronon, New York: W.W. Norton and Co, pp. 69 - 90.

Helmreich, Stefan (2005), 'How Scientists Think; About ‘Natives,’ for Example: A Problem of Taxonomy among Biologists of Alien Species in Hawaii', The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 11 (1), pp. 107-27

Thompson, Charis (2002), ‘When Elephants Stand for Competing Philosophies of Nature: Amboseli National Park’, in Complexities. John Law and Annemarie Mol, eds. (Duke UP), pp. 166-90.

Hinchliffe, Steve (2001), 'Indeterminacy In-Decisions: Science, Policy and Politics in the BSE Crisis', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 26 (2), pp. 182-204.

Adam, Barbara (1998), 'Industrial Food for Thought', in Timescapes of Modernity: The Environment & Invisible Hazards, London: Routledge, pp. 127-62.