490352-HS2024-0-BA/MA Sachbereichs-/Regionalübung: Rights of Nature: Critical Reflections from Social Anthropology and Beyond





Root number 490352
Semester HS2024
Type of course Exercise
Allocation to subject Social Anthropology
Type of exam Assignment
Title BA/MA Sachbereichs-/Regionalübung: Rights of Nature: Critical Reflections from Social Anthropology and Beyond
Description If you sign in for the course you are automatically signed in for the exam!

Rights of nature have become a global trend. Whilst Ecuador remains the only country so far to have granted ‘nature’ subjective rights on a constitutional level, courts in Colombia, India and New Zealand, to name just a few, have granted rights to forests, rivers and glaciers and, in 2022, the Spanish Parliament recognised the legal personhood of the Mar Menor salt lagoon. Many more political and legal initiatives are underway. Rights of nature are celebrated widely as a “legal revolution that could save the world” (Boyd 2017). In this block course, we will critically reflect on this claim by drawing on empirical insights into practical rights of nature mobilisation as well as on core debates from social anthropology in conceptualising ‘the human subject’ and thinking about ‘sameness’ and ‘difference’.
The course consists of three main blocks. In the first one, we will look at specific political and legal rights of nature initiatives, examining who the actors involved in them are, what their aims are, how ideas and knowledge about rights of nature circulate globally and are made applicable in local contexts and how “nature” is conceptualised in and through the different initiatives. The second block, by dealing with specific case studies, critically examines the social, political and epistemological effects of rights of nature mobilisation. In the third block, we explore different ways of conceptualising and writing about human/non-human “difference” and “sameness” in social anthropology, reflecting on their respective possibilities and pitfalls and what we might learn from such debates in thinking about rights of nature.
ILIAS-Link (Learning resource for course) Registrations are transmitted from CTS to (no admission in ILIAS possible). ILIAS
Link to another web site
Lecturers Dr. Laura AffolterInstitute of Social Anthropology 
ECTS 5
Recognition as optional course possible Yes
Grading 1 to 6
 
Dates Thursday 26/9/2024 16:15-18:00
Friday 27/9/2024 09:15-15:00
Saturday 28/9/2024 10:15-13:00
Friday 4/10/2024 09:15-15:00
Saturday 2/11/2024 09:15-13:00
Friday 8/11/2024 09:15-15:00
Saturday 9/11/2024 10:15-13:00
 
Rooms Seminarraum F 011, Hörraumgebäude Unitobler
Seminarraum F -106, Hörraumgebäude Unitobler
Seminarraum F -121, Hörraumgebäude Unitobler
Seminarraum F -122, Hörraumgebäude Unitobler
 
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