Course content

How shall we understand sustainability, a new concern for protecting the planet, within the context of the modern business and governmental organisation that has operated over the past several centuries with only sparse reference to safeguarding the earth?

In this course you will learn to recognize how modern business, government and ecological concerns are articulated and perceived in different cultural contexts. Contemporary notions of “nature” are entangled with concepts of personhood, risk, and cosmological orderings of humans and nonhumans but also with the way the modern organisations establish notions of resource management, climate science, consumption practices, and environmental ethics. With the contemporary environmental crisis as our backdrop we will examine critical appraisals of options for studying new interactions between organisations, risk, modernisation and the environment.

Learning outcome

Upon completion of the course, you will:

obtain an understanding of definitions of sustainability, organisations, and environmental risk as anthropological concepts

obtain an understanding of practices by government and business organisations in creating an ecological footprint in different scales and historical times

acquire an appreciation of how ethnography contributes to key issues and debates in sustainability and the cultures of work and business

learn to identify the strengths and weaknesses of various actions for sustainability in different organisational settings

acquire an ability to communicate effectively about the meanings of sustainability and organisations in your life

Learning methods and activities

Combination of lectures, seminar discussion and field projects.
SANT2022 and SANT2023: Minimum one course will be offered in the spring semester. Which course/s that is offered will be announced at the beginning of the spring semester. The announcement will be made at the Department and on the Department's web page

Compulsory assignments

• Field projects participation

Recommended previous knowledge

SANT1020, SANT1021, SANT1022 and SANT1023 or AFR1012, SANT1000, SANT1001, SANT1002 and SANT1103

Required previous knowledge

None

Course materials

See reading list available at the beginning of the semester