Nations and Identities : Rethinking Governance and Stewardship
Intro Page     Itinerary

Note: This program will not be offered in the fall of 2009. Please inquire with IHP for further details about the program.

CURRICULUM

Culture, Identity, and Place
(four credits)
Syllabus
This course examines various conceptions of culture and identity, using different disciplinary approaches and methods and through direct interaction with local peoples including their art, music, dance, and storytelling. We will explore the relationship of different peoples, cultures and societies with place and space and the conflicts associated with land and territory. We will learn how these issues are embedded in the histories of local peoples and how they have been affected by more recent interactions with peoples from Europe and Asia. 

Governance and Polity
(four credits)
Syllabus
This course examines the historical relationships of different normative frameworks, including international, national, and customary law, and how the creation of the modern nation-state affected all of them. In each country, the debate between the proponents of both Western-based legal systems, indigenous social institutions and new juridical and political pluralistic systems will be identified, with an emphasis on case studies highlighting the unique and different responses that emerged in colonial periods as well as more contemporaneously. A dialogue between representatives of various government and local entities will be included in each country program. Readings will focus on local, national, and international laws and regulations revolving around natural resources and the control and management of these resources by communities

Political and Social Movements
(four credits)
Syllabus
This course will examine the historical and contemporary evolution of social movements and the current political initiatives, to process the disenchantment with representative democracy, to strengthen participatory democracy and to create other democratic alternatives. These movements are emerging in a time of resurgence of cultural and ethnic assertion, some of it antagonistic to well-established social values and arrangements. Exchanges with local community representatives involved in various movements will be included in each country program. Readings focus on the theoretical foundations of political and social movements as well as providing specific case studies for comparative analysis.

Ecology and Knowledge Systems
(four credits)
Syllabus
This course will review different knowledge systems and ways of knowing. It will also identify and develop frameworks that compare Western ecological science with community-based ecology, and contrast how ways of knowing shape social and cultural systems as well as indigenous sciences and technologies. Visits to local representative ecosystems will be included in each country program.  Case study analysis will be a fundamental part of this course and small groups will be assigned to individual case studies in each country. Many of the readings will provide the background material describing the ecology and ecosystems of each location on the itinerary. Within this context, place-based bodies of knowledge will be examined and contrasted.

 

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