Nature, Labor and Global Social Formations

Kuymulu M. B.

• Dersin Düzeyi: Lisans
• Tasarlanan Ders Kodu: 2320466
• Öğretim Türü: Örgün Öğretim (Normal Öğretim)
• Dersin Kapsamı: Teorik
• Akademik Yıl: 2019 - 2020
• Ders İçeriği:

  This is a reading and writing intensive seminar on human beings’ universal metabolic relationship with the rest of nature and the manifold historical and geographical forms this relationship takes. Moving from the European colonial expansion and the Caribbean transnationalism as a starting point, our discussions will often revolve around the intersection of political economy and political ecology. We will critically discuss such issues as the relational and intersecting processes of appropriation of nature through human labor, the production of space and social ecologies; appropriation of the surplus created by labor by the owners of the means of production; and the relational and transnational formation of social identities such as race, ethnicity, and gender through a historical perspective both in colonial and post-colonial contexts across the globe.

  
  

  Course Objectives:

  • To introduce and debate the relationality of labor regimes, surplus extraction, land ownership systems and the construction of various social identities along different axes of social difference such as race, gender, ethnicity, and nationality.
  • To trace the historical and transnational formation of contemporary social identities and their multiple forms across the globe through different cases in various historical geographies.
  • To problematize and discuss the differences between, imperialism, transnationalism, colonialism, post-colonialism, nationalism, and universalism through a historical materialist framework by specifically examining class formations, land ownership and labor regimes in the context of the emergence and consolidation of European political modernity.
  • To discuss how above-mentioned processes are integral to the production of socio-ecological environments various peoples lived in and the historical formation of contemporary globalized political-ecological issues.    

  
  

   Course Requirements

  Critical Discussion Leading (20%)

  Throughout the semester each of you will pair up with a fellow student and take part in a 10-to-15-minute critical review on the weekly assignments of your choice. The primary aim of this exercise is to encourage you to construct a productive intellectual engagement with the assigned texts rather than being passive recipients. I would like you to critically discuss the main arguments of the texts and put them into a dialogue with each other whenever possible. Note that this excludes simple summaries. It would be very useful, if you came up with as many critical questions as possible derived from the text(s) to enrich your presentation. This would also enable us to pick up those questions and facilitate our discussion. When there are multiple texts in a particular week, you are expected to cover all the assigned readings and metabolize them in a single presentation. 
  

  Term Paper Proposal (20%)

  The main function of the term paper proposal is to get you started early on with your preliminary research on your term paper topic. I expect you to construct your research topic and research questions and present your initial relevant literature review. You can problematize any aspect of this course, as long as it inspires you, be it theoretical/conceptual, historical or empirical and write your paper on it. Proposals are due on December 2. Note that this date is relatively late and does not leave you much for research and write-up time, so earlier submissions of proposals are welcome, if you choose to do so. 

  Term Paper (60%)

  You will submit a final paper at the end of the semester. Your papers should be 15-20 pages. (Double-spaced, times new roman font, size 12.)

  
  

  
  

  Academic dishonesty in any form will not be tolerated. This is not because you have to respect intellectual property rights, but the labor of others.