Overview
Environmental destruction and climate change are urgent planetary problems. Framed by Mātauranga Māori, de/anticolonial and justice theories this course examines the politics of environmental and climate (in)justice.
As environmental disasters – floods to drought, fires to species extinctions, toxic pollution to climate change – dominate the news we ask: What is politics’ role in the causes of and solutions to environmental degradation? In response POLS 224 | POLS 324 considers what constitutes environmental injustice, why and how it occurs and ways to fashion political responses. Case studies will be drawn from Aotearoa, the Pacific and global experiences of environmental and climate injustice. We look at the foundations of liberal political thinking and draw from critical and decolonial theory and te Ao Māori in our search for useful tools to fashion just decolonial environmental politics. We will conclude that to solve the complex issues of environmental politics requires a pluriversal approach.
About this paper
| Paper title | Current Issues in Environmental Politics (Advanced) |
|---|---|
| Subject | Politics |
| EFTS | 0.1500 |
| Points | 18 points |
| Teaching period | Semester 1 (On campus) |
| Domestic Tuition Fees ( NZD ) | $1,103.10 |
| International Tuition Fees | Tuition Fees for international students are elsewhere on this website. |
- Prerequisite
- 18 200-level POLS points or 108 points
- Restriction
- POLS 224
- Schedule C
- Arts and Music
- Notes
- May not be credited together with POLS 330 passed in 2022, 2023, 2024.
- Contact
- Teaching staff
- Textbooks
To be advised.
- Graduate Attributes Emphasised
Global Perspective, Interdisciplinary Perspective, Lifelong Learning, Scholarship, Critical Thinking, Cultural Understanding, Ethics, Environmental Literacy, Information Literacy, Research, Self-Motivation
View more information about Otago's graduate attributes.- Learning Outcomes
Students who successfully complete the paper will:
- Demonstrate familiarity with key debates in environmental and climate politics including justice theory and colonization/imperialism, and the relevance of these debates to effective environmental policy and climate action
- Produce independent research that combines political and decolonial theories with secondary research to produce a decolonial analysis of a key issue of environmental injustice
- Demonstrate a clear understanding of the different approaches Indigenous Peoples in general, and Māori in particular, bring to the underlying causal issues of the environment, climate change, environmental ethics, and environmental politics
- Demonstrate a clear understanding of:
- the ways in which the philosophies of colonialism continue to have force in the present and on the future
- the fundamental arguments of decolonial theory
- the connections between environmental degradation and colonialism
- Demonstrate an understanding of the philosophical foundations of Mātauranga Māori and the mechanisms of environmental protection that derive from it
- Demonstrate the ability to analyse the philosophical foundations of community discourse in political theory and environmental/climate justice