ANTHR 4410 - Indigenous Peoples, Ecological Sciences, and Environmentalism

Spring. 4 credits. Student option grading.

Co-meets with ANTHR 7410.

P. Nadasdy.

This course examines the long, complex, and ambivalent relationship among indigenous peoples (with an emphasis on the North American context), scientific ecology, and environmentalism. It begins by looking at the key role played by images of the “ecologically noble savage” in the historical development of the ecological sciences and the environmental movement. It then turns to an in-depth examination of several historical and ethnographic case studies in an effort to understand how the entanglement of indigenous peoples, environmental activists, and ecological scientists have shaped-and continue to shape-environmental politics and struggles over indigenous rights.