Course Overview

Examines social and ecological environments in Asia through the lens of classic and contemporary ethnographies from across the continent. Considers how cultural, political and economic dynamics interact with ecological systems in both recurring and unexpected ways. Ethnographies include case studies of global commodity chains, technoscientific management, borders and migration, conservation, and local knowledge as they intersect with changing environments.

Course Books

  • Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt. 2005. Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
  • Choy, Timothy. 2011. Ecologies of Comparison: An Ethnography of Endangerment in Hong Kong.
  • Doherty, Gareth. 2017. Paradoxes of Green: Landscapes of a City-State. Oakland: University of California Press.
  • Will Smith. 2020. Mountains of Blame: Climate and Culpability in the Philippine Uplands. Culture, Place, and Nature: Studies in Anthropology and Environment. University of Washington Press
  • McElwee, Pamela D. 2016. Forests Are Gold: Trees, People, and Environmental Rule in Vietnam
  • Siniawer, Eiko Maruko. 2018. Waste: Consuming Postwar Japan. Cornell University Press.
  • Hussain, S., 2019. The snow leopard and the goat: Politics of conservation in the Western Himalayas. University of Washington Press
  • Li, Tania, And Pujo Semedi. Plantation Life: Corporate Occupation in Indonesia’s Oil Palm Zone. Duke University Press, 2021. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1zn1t03.
  • Hjorth et al. 2016. Screen Ecologies: Art, Media, and the Environment in the Asia-Pacific Region