Fall 2016

Soc. 869: Communities and Conservation: Great Lakes Water Justice

Course Syllabus 

Faculty: Stephen P. Gasteyer, (with Jennifer Carrera and Kyle Powys Whyte)

Time/Place: Monday 6-8:50; 100 Berkey Hall

Office hours: Tuesday 10-12 or By appointment, 422A Berkey Hall

For all contact use my MSU account: gasteyer@msu.edu

 

Course Objectives and Design

In the past several years, a watcher of the news of the Great Lakes witnessed a seemingly endless cascade of water crises.  These included: one of the largest oil spills in US history on the Kalamazoo River;  the ongoing debates about the safety of oil pipelines under the Mackinac Straits;  the controversy, protest, and activism around tens of thousands of water shutoffs to households in Detroit; the tragic water supply debacle in Flint, Michigan; an “algae bloom” that led to a cutoff of water supply for more than 400,000 households in the Toledo area for two weeks; and continuing concerns about groundwater management, invasive species, storm water runoff, beach closures, and the food, energy, water, climate change nexus and its impacts on conventional and alternative agriculture.  While often analyzed as technical, scientific, purely economic, or purely political issues, scholars of the humanities and social sciences have much to contribute to understanding the causation of these issues, different ways of understanding the issues, and what may be done to create just solutions.

This course aims to help students understand and employ social theories, concepts, and methods to analyze issues like these.  The course will be taught as a seminar, with required readings and discussion, as well as guest speakers and possibly even outings, if deemed necessary.  Our study of the Great Lakes will employ emerging literatures on environmental justice, the political ecology of water systems and infrastructure, traditional ecological knowledge and ways of knowing, community based water conservation, watershed and groundwater management, water regulation and management, and the social studies of science.  Our investigation will be grounded through discussion of methods of inquiry including, but not necessarily limited to discourse analysis, open ended interviews, secondary data analysis, and geospatial analysis.

Early in the semester, students will be aided in identifying issues of interest, and will work on dedicated research projects.  The course will also be conducted in concert with similar courses being held at University of Illinois-Chicago and University of Michigan.  Students will be given the opportunity to contribute to a joint blog over the course of the semester on the social science and humanities approaches to analyzing Great Lakes water issues.  The goal is to produce work that can be incorporated into a collaborative document that outlines strategies for applying social science and the humanities to Great Lakes Water issues.

Class Outline

Each class will involve analysis and discussion of selected assigned readings, hearing from and discussing with a guest speaker, and a discussion about how the methods, theoretical frameworks, and perspectives in the readings and discussions contribute to analysis Great Lakes water issues.  A key part of making this work will be papers that each participant will produce over the semester.  While there are many weeks in the semester for which the topic, speaker, and readings are set, we also have some flexibility and can work on developing classes that confirm to interests of participants (within reason).

We will cover one broad topic each week.  Students will be expected to write one half page to a page about the readings identifying key themes and questions for each week, starting in week 2.  There will also be periodic updates on the research papers and topics starting with a proposed abstract in week 3.  The “exam week” session will be reserved for presentations.  The amount of time per presenter and style of presentation will be determined by the number of students in the class.

Expectations

This graduate seminar will be conducted as an exercise in co-learning.  As professor, I have found chapters and three readings per week, plus provided additional materials that will not be required, but will be available as resources.  Students are requested to come to class having read sufficiently to discuss the implications of the readings in class.  More importantly, the course will be conducted as an exchange of information around development of research.  Early in the semester students will asked to develop a topic for a research paper pertaining to communities and conservation.  I will be happy to assist in development of topics. Once the topic is chosen, the classes will be a forum for discussing the readings in reference to the various paper topics.  (Note: I will also plan to have a research project that I am carrying out on this topic over the course of this semester.)  Ideally (but not of necessity), our topics will relate to one of the many examples of community conservation initiatives that surround here in Michigan.

 

Grading

Class Attendance and participation: 30%

Final Presentation: 30%

Final paper: 40%

 

Other university policies and guidance

Code of Teaching Responsibility: https://reg.msu.edu/AcademicPrograms/Print.asp?Section=514

Final Exam Policy:  https://reg.msu.edu/AcademicPrograms/Text.aspx?Section=112#s499

Religious Observance Policy: https://reg.msu.edu/AcademicPrograms/Text.aspx?Section=112#s548

Religious Observance Statements:  https://reg.msu.edu/ROInfo/Notices/ReligiousPolicy.aspx

Grief Absence Policy: https://reg.msu.edu/AcademicPrograms/Text.aspx?Section=112#s13216

VISA (Verified Individualized Services & Accommodations) Policy: https://www.rcpd.msu.edu/services/visa

RCPD (Resource Center for Persons with Disabilities) Information:https://www.rcpd.msu.edu/awareness

The Ombudsperson web page on classroom policies: https://msu.edu/unit/ombud/classroom-policies/index.html

The Ombudsperson web page on Syllabus FAQ: https://msu.edu/unit/ombud/classroom-policies/syllabus-faq.html

 

Course Schedule and Assignments

PART I: Society and the Environment in the Great Lakes 

August 31– Introduction: Overview:

What is WATER?; What is JUSTICE?; Water and Power?; Water and COMMUNITY?

Under what conditions do they meet?

Budds, Jessica, Jamie Linton, and Rachael McDonnell. 2014. The hydrosocial cycle. Geoforum 57 : 167-9. (in MSU Library)

Schmidt, Jeremy J. 2014. Historicizing the hydrosocial cycle. Water Alternatives 7 (1). (in MSU Library)

Boelens, Rutgerd, Jaime Hoogesteger, Erik Swyngedouw, Jeroen Vos, and Philippus Wester. 2016. Hydrosocial territories: A political ecology perspective. Water International 41 (1): 1-14. (in MSU Library)

Mascia, M., J. P. Brosius, T. Dobson, B. C. Forbes, L. Horowitz, M. A. McKean, N. J. Turner.  2003. Conservation and Social Science.  Conservation Biology 17 (3): 649-650. (in MSU Library)

de Loë, Rob C., and Reid D. Kreutzwiser. 2000. Climate variability, climate change and water resource management in the great lakes. Climatic Change 45 (1): 163-79.

 

September 12  – Water in the Great Lakes Region

Topic Questions: How have the politics and systems for managing the Great Lakes changed over time?  What are the emerging issues for water quality, distribution, and management of the Great Lakes?

Anin, Peter.  2009.  The Great Lakes Water War.  Washington, DC: Island Press.

Additional Reading:

Galloway, Gerald and Ralph Pentland.  2005.  Securing the Future of Ground Water Resources in the Great Lakes Basin.  Ground Water 43(5): 737-743.

Guest Speaker: Jon Allan, Director, Michigan Office of the Great Lakes

 

PART II: The Sociology of Science and Other Ways of Knowing Change in the Great Lakes

September 19: Science, Models, and Research to Address Great Lakes  — Juno and Matt

Topic Questions: How have traditional water conservation practices been implemented to impact water management in the Great Lakes?  How are social processes, economics, politics, and technologies addressing the important questions and issues?

Batie, Sandra S. 2008. Wicked problems and applied economics. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 90 (5): 1176-91.

Cronon, William.  1996.  The Trouble with Wilderness or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature.  Environmental History: 7-22

Karlen, Douglas L., Gary A. Peterson, and Dwayne G. Westfall. “Soil and Water Conservation: Our History and Future Challenges.” Soil Science Society of America Journal 78.5 (2014): 1493-9. http://search.proquest.com.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/docview/1613119137/fulltext/64B9306459944D59PQ/1?accountid=12598

Nowak, Pete, Sarah Bowen, Perry Cabot.  2006.  Disproportionality as a Framework for Linking Social and Biophysical Systems.  Society and Natural Resources  19(2): 153-173.

Guest Speaker – Jon Bartholic, Director, Institute for Water Research, Michigan State University

 

September 26: Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Ways of Knowing –  Ben and Joel

Guest instructor: Kyle Powys Whyte, MSU Department of Philosophy

Topic Questions:  What is TEK?  How might TEK change understanding of Great Lakes Water Management? How does TEK relate to water Justice?

McGregor, Deborah. 2008. Linking traditional ecological knowledge and western science: Aboriginal perspectives from the 2000 state of the lakes ecosystem conference. Canadian Journal of Native Studies 28 (1): 139.

Berkes, Fikret, Mina Kislalioglu Berkes, and Helen Fast.  2007.  Collaborative Integrated Management in Canada’s North: The Role of Local and Traditional Knowledge and Community-Based Monitoring.  Coastal Management, 35: 143–162.

Drew, J. A., and A. P. Henne 2006. Conservation biology and traditional ecological knowledge: integrating academic disciplines for better conservation practice. Ecology and Society 11(2): 34. [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol11/iss2/art34/

Kyle Whyte.  2014.  Renewing Relatives: Nmé Stewardship in a Shared Watershed.  Environmental Humanities Cluster Observatories, http://hfe-observatories.org/project/renewing-relatives-nme-stewardship-in-a-shared-watershed/

Kyle Powys Whyte. 2015.  What Do Indigenous Knowledges Do for Indigenous Peoples? Forthcoming in Keepers of the Green World: Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Sustainability, edited by Melissa K. Nelson and Dan Shilling.

Additional Reading: 

Folke, Carl. 2004. Traditional knowledge in social–ecological systems. Ecology and Society 9(3): 7  http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/iss3/art7/

Deborah McGregor (2012) Reviewing Bridging Cultures: Indigenous and Scientific Ways of Knowing Nature , Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education 12(3): 302-310, DOI: 10.1080/14926156.2012.690064 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14926156.2012.690064

Reo, Nicholas James, and Kyle Powys Whyte. 2012. Hunting and morality as elements of traditional ecological knowledge. Human Ecology 40, (1) (02): 15-27.

Ruiz-Mallén, I. and E. Corbera. 2013. Community-based conservation and traditional ecological knowledge: implications for social-ecological resilience. Ecology and Society 18(4):12.
http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ES-05867-180412.  http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol18/iss4/art12/

Berkes, Fikret and Nancy Turner. 2006: Knowledge, Learning and the Evolution of Conservation Practice for Socio-Ecological System Resilience. Human Ecology 34(4).  http://link.springer.com.proxy2.cl.msu.edu/article/10.1007/s10745-006-9008-2

 

October 3:  Community and Watershed Management – Judith and Mike

Topic Questions: How do social and community institutions influence water quality protection?  What are the processes that influence consensus around water quality protection?

Gasteyer, Stephen P. 2008. Agricultural transitions in the context of growing environmental pressure over water. Agriculture and Human Values 25 (4): 469-86.

Hardy, Scott.  2010.  Government, Group Memberships, and Watershed Partnerships.  Society & Natural Resources 23(7): 587-603.

Ivey, J. L., R. C. de Loë, and R. D. Kreutzwiser. 2006. Planning for source water protection in Ontario. Applied Geography 26 (3): 192-209.

Morton, Lois W., and Chih Y. Weng. “Getting to Better Water Quality Outcomes: The Promise and Challenge of the Citizen Effect.” Agriculture and Human Values, vol. 26, no. 1, 2009., pp. 83-94doi:10.1007/s10460-008-9175-4.

Guest Speaker: Ruth Kline Robach, Outreach Specialist, Department of Community Sustainability, http://nrconservation.msu.edu/nrconservation/people/ruth_kline_robach

 

October 10: Community and Water Management II – Kayleigh and Alaina

Topic Questions:  What is watershed management?; How is it implemented?; Who are the actors and what are prevailing values?

Arbuckle Jr., J. Gordon.  2013. Farmer Attitudes toward Proactive Targeting of Agricultural Conservation Programs, Society & Natural Resources: An International Journal, 26(6): 625-641.

Jackson-Smith, D D.B., M. Halling, E. de la Hoz, J.P. McEvoy, and J.S. Horsburgh. 2010.  Measuring conservation program best management practice implementation and maintenance at the watershed scale.  Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, 65(6):413-423.

Wright Morton, Lois, Theresa Selfa, and Terrie A. Becerra.  2010.  Shared Leadership for Watershed Management. Pp. 29-39 in (Lois Wright-Morton and Susan Brown, eds.) Pathways for Water Quality: The Citizen Effect.  New York: Springer.

Nowak, Pete, Sarah Bowen, Perry Cabot.  2006.  Disproportionality as a Framework for Linking Social and Biophysical Systems.  Society and Natural Resources  19(2): 153-173.

Nowak, P. 2011.  The Conservation Journey.  Journal of Soil and Water Conservation 66(3): 61-64.

Reimer, AP, DK Weinkauf, and LS Prokopy. 2012. The influence of perceptions of practice characteristics: An examination of agricultural best management practice adoption in two indiana watersheds. Journal of Rural Studies 28 (1): 118-28.

Guest speaker –TBD

 

PART III:  Water Justice, Water Rights

October 17:  Climate Change and Indigenous Water Justice – Ani and Shengpan

http://nativenewsonline.net/currents/frank-ettawageshik-odawa-delivers-closing-plenary-of-nfccc-cop21-in-paris-on-behalf-of-indigenous-peoples/

Adam J. Barker (2015) ‘A Direct Act of Resurgence, a Direct Act of Sovereignty ’: Reflections on Idle No More, Indigenous Activism, and Canadian Settler Colonialism, Globalizations, 12:1, 43-65, DOI: 10.1080/14747731.2014.971531

Mascarenhas, Michael.  2007.  Where the Waters Divide: First Nations, Tainted Water and Environmental Justice in Canada.  Local Environment Vol. 12 (6): 565-577.

Whyte, K.P. 2013.  Justice forward: Tribes, climate adaptation and responsibility.  Climatic Change 120: 517-530. doi:10.1007/s10584-013-0743-2. http://link.springer.com.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-013-0743-2

Guest Speaker – Frank Ettiwageshek

 

Additional Readings

http://www.waterwalkersunited.com/

 

October 24: Water Abjection: Instructor, Jennifer Carrera – Mark and Shairah

Topic Questions: What are the systems and mechanisms that lead some not to have adequate water services? How can this explain the dynamics behind the water debacle in Flint, Michigan?

Municipal disconnect: On abject water and its urban infrastructures, by Nikhil Anand, Ethnography 2012 13(4):487-509 http://eth.sagepub.com/content/13/4/487.full.pdf+html

Infrastructural violence: Introduction to the special issue. Dennis Rogers and Bruce O’Neill Ethnography 2012 13(4):401-412 http://eth.sagepub.com/content/13/4/401.full.pdf+html

The Political Economy and Political Ecology of the Hydro-Social Cycle, by Eric Swyngedouw, Journal of Contemporary Water Research and Education 2009 142(1):56-60 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1936-704X.2009.00054.x/epdf

Zones of indistinction: bio-political contestations in the urban arena, by Matthew Gandy, Cultural Geographies 13(4):497-516 http://cgj.sagepub.com/content/13/4/497.full.pdf+html

Poisoned City: Flint and the Specter of Domestic Terrorism, by Henry A. Giroux, Truthout March 3, 2016 http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/35080-poisoned-city-flint-and-the-specter-of-domestic-terrorism

 

Guest speakers from Detroit and Flint

 

October 31: Environmental Justice, Conservation, and Water? – Paige and Tomena

Topic Questions: What is environmental justice? How might the concept apply to Water and other forms of conservation?

Zwarteveen, Margreet and Rutger Boelens.  2014.  Defining, Researching, and Struggling for Water Justice: Some Conceptual Building Blocks for Research and Action.  Water International 39:2, 143-158.

Brulle, Robert and David Pellow.  2006.  ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: Human Health and Environmental Inequalities. Annual Review of Public Health 27: 103-124.

Rowan, George T. and Cynthia Fridgen.  2003.  Brownfields and Environmental Justice: The Threats and Challenges of Contamination.  Environmental Practice 5:58–61.

Mohai, Paul, David Pellow, and J. Timmons Roberts.  2009.  Environmental Justice.  Annual Review of Environmental Resources 34:405–30

Guest Speaker on Environmental Justice and Water Justice

 

Part IV – Focus on Issues

November 7: Food, Water, Energy, Climate, Nature Nexus?  Shivan and Mahlet

Topic Question Fracking, Bioenergy, Biodiversity, Water; Climate Change and Public Attitudes in the Great Lakes?; Mining and Justice in the UP

Charman, Karen. 2010. Trashing the Planet for Natural Gas: Shale Gas Development Threatens Freshwater Sources, Likely Escalates Climate Destabilization, Capitalism Nature Socialism, 21:4, 72-82

Dietz, T., G. T. Gardner, J. Gilligan, P. C. Stern, and M. P. Vandenbergh. 2009. From the cover: Household actions can provide a behavioral wedge to rapidly reduce US carbon emissions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106 (44): 18452-6.

Eaton, Weston M., Stephen P. Gasteyer, and Lawrence Busch. 2014. Bioenergy futures: Framing sociotechnical imaginaries in local places: Bioenergy futures. Rural Sociology 79 (2): 227-56.

Magdoff, Fred. 2008. The political economy and ecology of biofuels. Monthly Review 60 (3): 34.

Rosa, E. 1988. Energy and society. Annual Review of Sociology 14 (1): 149-72.

van der Horst, Dan, and James Evans. 2010. Carbon claims and energy landscapes: Exploring the political ecology of biomass. Landscape Research 35 (2): 173-93.

Pipelines and their discontents:  http://www.oilandwaterdontmix.org/new_documentary_exposes_enbridge_line_5

The Discontents of Ethanol:  http://www.dptv.org/programs/documentaries/ethanol-effect/

 

November 14: Water Privatization, Commodification, and the Rights Framework for Water and Nature —  Dan and Juno

Topic Questions: What is water privatization?  How might a rights framework inform access to and management of water and nature?  What are the limitations of rights frameworks?

Bakker, Karen.  2006.  The “Commons” Versus the “Commodity”: Alter-globalization, Anti-privatization and the Human Right to Water in the Global South – the uncooperative commodity.  Ch. 2,. Pp. 38-63 in (Becky Mansfield, ed.) Privatization: Property and the Remaking of Nature–Society Relations, London: Oxford University Press. ISBN: 978-1-405-17550-0

Greiner, Patrick Trent. 2016. Social drivers of water utility privatization in the united states: An examination of the presence of variegated neoliberal strategies in the water utility sector. Rural Sociology81 (3): 387-406.

Harris, Leila M., Lucy Rodina, and Cynthia Morinville. 2015. Revisiting the human right to water from an environmental justice lens. Politics, Groups, and Identities 3 (4): 660.

Jaffee, Daniel, and Soren Newman. 2013. A more perfect commodity: Bottled water, global accumulation, and local contestation. Rural Sociology 78 (1): 1-28.

 

Additional Reading

Brown, Colin, Neves-Priscila Silva, and Leo Heller. 2016. The human right to water and sanitation: A new perspective for public policies. Ciência & Saúde Coletiva 21 (3).

Kirschner, Adele J. 2011. The human right to water and sanitation. Max Planck Yearbook of United Nations Law Online 15 (1): 445-87.

Mosley, Elizabeth A., Cortney K. Bouse, and Kelli Stidham Hall. 2015. Water, human rights, and reproductive justice: Implications for women in Detroit and Monrovia. Environmental Justice 8 (3): 78-85.

Report of the Special Rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation, Catarina de Albuquerque.  United Nations Human Rights Council 2014.

 

Guest Speaker on Human Rights and Water Privatization, Lynna Kauchek, Food and Water Watch, Detroit

 

November 21: Sustainability and Water Justice? 

What is sustainability?  How are concepts such as social and environmental justice related to sustainability?  What are political ecological perspectives on sustainable development?

Agyeman, Julian, Robert D. Bullard & Bob Evans (2002) Exploring the Nexus: Bringing Together Sustainability, Environmental Justice and Equity, Space and Polity, 6:1, 77-90, DOI: 10.1080/13562570220137907;  http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13562570220137907

Dietz, Thomas, Elinor Ostrom, and Paul C. Stern. 2003. The struggle to govern the commons. Science 302 (5652): 1907-12.

Leach, Melissa, Ian Scoones, and Andy Stirling. 2010. Dynamic sustainabilities: Technology, environment, social justice. Sterling, VA;London;: Earthscan. Chapter 3: Pathways to Sustainability

Klain, SC, R. Beveridge, and NJ Bennett. 2014. Ecologically sustainable but unjust? negotiating equity and authority in common-pool marine resource management. Ecology and Society 19 (4): 52.

 

November 28: Resilience, Adaptation and Conceptions of Justice

What is resilience?  How is the concept of resilience implemented?  How does it relate to natural resources challenges in the Great Lakes?  How does it relate to considerations of environmental justice, the hydrosocial, etc.?

Cretney, Raven. 2014. Resilience for whom? emerging critical geographies of Socio‐ecological resilience. Geography Compass 8 (9): 627-40.

Magis, Kristen. 2010. Community resilience: An indicator of social sustainability. Society & Natural Resources 23 (5): 401-16.

Ostrom, Elinor.  2009.  A General Framework for Analyzing Sustainability of Social-Ecological Systems.  Science 325 (5939): 419-422.

Walker, B., C. S. Holling, S. R. Carpenter, and A. Kinzig. 2004. Resilience, adaptability and transformability in social–ecological systems. Ecology and Society 9(2): 5. [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/iss2/art5

Extra Reading:

Leach, M. (ed.) (2008) Re-framing Resilience: a Symposium Report, STEPS Working Paper 13, Brighton: STEPS Centre.

 

December 4: Presentations – Paper presentation Possible Workshop?