Race, Nature & Power

Geography 472

Next up, Spring 2024

grid of differently shaped and colored potatoes in rainbow order
The Mutato Archive, by Uli Westphal

This undergraduate class explores the role that racial formation and power relations play in the cultural, political and spatial production of nature. Students will bring together the insights of political ecology (usually associated with the rural Third World) and environmental justice (usually associated with the urban US) across three modules:
  • Racial formations in place-making;
  • (Un)natural disasters and the distribution of risk; and
  • Body politics, including debates over reproductive justice and Native American DNA.
 
There are no prerequisites, but it's helpful if you have taken a relevant lower-division course. Possibilities include: Environmental Justice (Geog272), Geography of Food & Eating (Geog271), and/or Geographies of Health (Geog280).