Description

The pattern of natural resource use during the pre-Colombian period has strongly been influenced by local environmental factors in Latin America. The diversity of landscape (e.g., rainforest, mountains, plains, and coasts) reveals distinct management systems by the indigenous groups according to the spatial and temporal distribution and abundance of natural resources. The arrival of the Europeans introduced new production systems, institutions, and social relations in the region. The interplay between the local environmental factors and the external social variables introduced during the colonization and post-colonial periods has led to a myriad of rural societies (e.g., maroons, mestizos, rubber tappers, and ribereños) and patterns of resource use (e.g., water management, fishing, forestry, shifting cultivation) we see today. More recently, the international concern regarding the role of the tropical forests on global climate change has added to this process by stimulating preservationist policies (e.g., conservation units, indigenous reserves, co-management initiatives) which have direct influence on how rural populations appropriate and use natural resources.

This course aims at introducing the diversity of local management systems in different regions in Latin America, and how they are influenced by socio-environmental processes at local, national and international levels. The course will have an interdisciplinary perspective of resource management in Latin America, illustrated by case studies from different regions. Theoretical, methodological and policy implications will be discussed. I expect you to leave this course with an understanding of key issues characterizing the shaping of local management systems in Latin America, to be able to analyze this process by articulating variables at different social and ecological scales, and to relate the implication of environmental and economic policies on local management systems.

Form of instruction and assessment

The course will be based on lectures and discussion of assigned reading material, drawn mainly from scientific publications and secondary data available in relevant websites. The evaluation will be based on short memos (1 page long), group activity, discussion of scientific articles, and a final paper (ca. 5000 words) to be presented and discussed during a seminar.

Literature

Literature (ca. 500 pages) will be announced one month before the course begins.