Available in 2024
Course code

SOCA6590

Units

10 units

Level

6000 level

Course handbook

Description

Environmental Justice is predicated on the idea that environmental harm is borne by the most marginalised communities in society, while environmental profits are unequally shared. In this course students will explore the ways environmental injustice is experienced between and within societies, the fissures that exacerbate and overcome injustice, and the strategies and tactics different actors adopt to challenge environment injustice. We are interested in the complexities, contradictions and dilemmas of environmental justice and in developing tools to navigate through these. Course content has been designed around case studies from the Global South and Global North that encourage students to engage with existing issues and think of ways to approach similar scenarios.


Availability2024 Course Timetables

Callaghan

  • Semester 2 - 2024

Online

  • Semester 2 - 2024

Learning outcomes

On successful completion of the course students will be able to:

1. Evaluate environmental justice as a mechanism for understanding relations between the environment and society;

2. Analyse the actors, institutions, conditions and approaches that enable and constrain environmental justice and identify these in weekly readings and the readings quizzes;

3. Identify and present environmental justice case studies in oral form and provide written comments on the case studies presented by peers;

4. Research, extend and communicate in-depth case studies in written form and examine the implications of these for theory, policy and practice.


Content

This course examines:

  1. The concept of environmental justice and injustice, its origins, and its centrality to development studies;
  2. The importance of context, politics, power, and interests in determining environmental injustice and its contestation;
  3. Cases of environmental injustice from the Global South and Global North;
  4. Agency and activism of communities pursuing environmental justice;
  5. The future of environmental justice in a time of global ecological crisis.

Assumed knowledge

Undergraduate degree with major in social science or other area related to the course material.


Assessment items

Quiz: Readings Quiz (Online)

Presentation: Oral Presentation Video (Online)

Essay: Essay Based on EJ Case Study


Contact hours

Semester 2 - 2024 - Callaghan

Lectorial-1
  • Face to Face On Campus 2 days per week for 1 week(s) starting in week 2
Self-Directed Learning-1
  • Self-Directed 2 hour(s) per week(s) for 12 week(s) starting in week 1

Semester 2 - 2024 - Online

Online Activity-1
  • Online 1 hour(s) per week(s) for 12 week(s) starting in week 1
Self-Directed Learning-1
  • Self-Directed 2 hour(s) per week(s) for 12 week(s) starting in week 1

Course outline

Course outline not yet available.