डॉ. बी. आर. अम्बेडकर विश्‍वविद्यालय दिल्ली
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar University Delhi
Established by The Government of NCT of Delhi

Semester and Year Offered: Third Semester; 2 nd Year of MA

Coordinator and Instructor: Dr. Budhaditya Das

Email of course coordinator: budhaditya@aud.ac.in

Course Description:

This course introduces students to feminist perspectives of looking at human- environment relations and to approaches that theorise the relationship between gender and environment in the Global South. The course will discuss how gender complicates the fields of environmental politics, resource relations and governance. It aims to deploy feminist political ecology approaches to gendered communities and their relationships with land, water, forests and non-human animals. The course will critically examine mainstream policy, state and civil society interventions that seek to build gender equity and empowerment within development and environmental projects.

Learning Objectives

• To understand debates regarding gendered representations of nature, and women’s association with environment in history and public culture.
• To critically examine the role of eco-feminist theory and practice in shaping environmental politics and women’s movements in the Global South.
• To understand how gender roles, social identities and subjectivities shape access, ownership and use of natural resources, such as land, forests and water, within households and communities.
• To understand the potential and outcomes of inclusion of gender concerns in environmental policy and governance.

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Learning Outcomes

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

• Articulate the workings of gender in society and address issues related to gender inequality, justice and discrimination.
• Demonstrate knowledge of key theorists and theoretical frameworks related to gender and environment.
• Demonstrate the conceptual linkages between gender, social identities and use, ownership and governance of natural resources in the Global South.
• Critically analyse environmental and natural resource laws, policies and programmes through the lens of gender and feminist political ecology.

Course Structure

Unit	Title	Module	Title
I	Introduction	1	Conceptualising Gender
		2	Social Identities
II	Beginnings	3	Ecofeminism
		4	Interrogating Ecofeminism
III	Intersectional and Political Economy Approaches	5	Land and Property
		6	Water, Forests and Commons
IV	New Directions: Feminist Political Ecology	7	Epistemology
		8	Subjectivity
		9	Environmentality
		10	Masculinities
		11	Non-human animals
		12	Affect and Care

Assessments Details with Weights

Assessment No.	Weight	Description
1	10%	Classroom Participation (Continuous Assessment)
2	20%	Take Home Essay
3	30%	In-class Individual Presentations
4	40%	Take Home Summative Essay

Indicative Reading List

• Lorber, Judith. (1994). Night to His Day: The Social Construction of Gender, in Paradoxes of Gender. New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 13—36.
• Appiah, Kwame Anthony. (2019). Classification, in The Lies that Bind: Rethinking Identity. New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, pp. 1—32.
• Mies, Maria and Vandana Shiva. (2014). Ecofeminism (Chapters 1, 4 and 5). London: Zed Books.
• Merchant, Carolyn. (1980). The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology and the Scientific Revolution (Chapters 1, 5 and 7). San Francisco: Harper & Row Publishers.
• Ortner, Sherry. (1974). Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture? in M.Z. Rosaldo and L. Lamphere (Eds). Woman, Culture and Society. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, pp. 67—88.
• Leach, Melissa. (2007). Earth Mother Myths and Other Ecofeminist Fables: How a Strategic Notion Rose and Fell, Development and Change, 38(1), pp. 67—85
• Agarwal, Bina. (1992). The Gender and Environment Debate: Lessons from India, Feminist Studies, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 119—158.
• Agarwal, Bina. (1994). Gender and Command Over Property: A Critical Gap in Economic Analysis and Policy in South Asia, World Development, Vol. 22, No. 10, pp. 1455—1478.
• Rao, Nitya. (2005). Questioning Women’s Solidarity: The Case of Land Rights, Santal Parganas, Jharkhand, India, The Journal of Development Studies, 41(3), pp. 353—375.
• Nightingale, Andrea. (2006). The nature of gender: work, gender, and environment, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, Vol. 24, pp. 165—185.
• Sultana, Farhana. (2009). Fluid lives: subjectivities, gender and water in rural Bangladesh, Gender, Place and Culture, 16 (4), 427–444.
• Agrawal, Arun. (2005). Environmentality: Community, Intimate Government and the Making of Environmental Subjects in Kumaon, India, Current Anthropology, Vol. 46, No. 2, pp. 161—190.
• Shreshtha, Gitta, D. Joshi, F. Clement. (2019). Masculinities and hydropower in India: a feminist political ecology perspective, International Journal of the Commons, Vol. 13(1), pp. 130—152.