ANTH 379 - Resource-Making through the Mediterranean

Through the ages, the Mediterranean Sea has been a conduit of interaction rather than an obstacle, connecting continents, peoples, ecologies, resources, and politics. This course examines the interplay between power relations and natural resources in the Mediterranean region by surveying works in anthropology, history, human geography, and political ecology. Scholars have examined natural resource management from international relations, geopolitical, or political economy perspectives for decades. Recent scholarship brings other critical approaches to bear on the discussions of environment and politics in the Mediterranean region. Focusing on this rising critical scholarship, we will elaborate on how water, oil, coal, land, forests, fisheries, agriculture, and solar energy - among others - are made into sources of political power at scales ranging from everyday life to national and transnational politics. By challenging the “naturalness” of resources, we will reflect on what a natural resource is and how it connects with sociocultural practices, power relations, and historical processes. In this course, we will focus on the Mediterranean to explore themes and concepts such as colonialism, nationalism, power, resistance, access, scarcity, abundance, pollution, and temporality through the lenses of critical social studies on natural resources.

Unit(s): 1
Group Distribution Requirement(s): Distribution Group II
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 201 or ANTH 211
Instructional Method: Conference
Grading Mode: Letter grading (A-F)
Notes: This course applies to the anthropology department’s SETS concentration, and to the department’s area requirement.
Not offered: 2024-25
Group Distribution Learning Outcome(s):

Evaluate data and/or sources.
Analyze institutions, formations, languages, structures, or processes, whether social, political, religious, economic, cultural, intellectual or other.
Think in sophisticated ways about causation, social and/or historical change, human cognition, or the relationship between individuals and society, or engage with social, political, religious or economic theory in other areas.