ENV 344 - Seminar in Environmental Social Science

This seminar explores how communities across the globe resist environmental injustice and challenge systems of resource extraction, dispossession, and exclusion. Centering the voices of Indigenous peoples, communities of color, and grassroots activists, the course examines environmental resistance as both a struggle for survival and a movement for justice. Students will investigate diverse case studies-from land defense in the Amazon and anti-extraction struggles in Africa, and climate justice in the Caribbean, to Indigenous water protectors in North America and urban environmental justice movements in Asia-while considering the global interconnections among these efforts. Readings and discussions will engage theories of political ecology, decolonization, and sustainability to unpack how power, race, and geography shape environmental conflicts. Through critical analysis, collaborative dialogue, and applied projects, students will gain an understanding of the strategies, narratives, and solidarities that define environmental resistance worldwide.